Trauma from a multidisciplinary perspective - ASG, Pufendorf IAS

Advanced study Group (ASG) at the Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies

Trauma is a highly topical subject in today’s global situation, where societies are marked by multiple sources of turbulence that also represent potential sources of trauma with subsequent consequences for individuals, groups and entire societies. However, trauma can be understood in many ways, trauma can be viewed from multiple scientific perspectives and have many forms of expression, both human, societal, scientific and political.

Today’s societies are marked by global turbulence and challenges of major dignity, affecting societies and individuals’ daily life and outlook on the future in multiple ways. Such challenges include politically unstable situations in several countries, global crises including warfare and migration streams, social inequalities and persecution, the current COVID-19 pandemic, sustainability concerns and climate anguish, among others. Such conditions and events can naturally ignite social disturbance, economic collapse, physical and psychological reactions and symptoms, including fear and anxiety, and potentially represent (in)direct sources of trauma. Short and long-term consequences of such events are difficult to grasp and fathom, for the individual, groups and society.

The study group’s aim is to identify and formulate interdisciplinary research questions regarding trauma, with relevance for individuals and society through multidisciplinary collaboration, combining medicine, social sciences and humanities around the subject of trauma. Another aim is to map and understand how individuals', groups’, and societies’ experiences and expressions of trauma are conceptualized and represented within different disciplines´ and art and cultural forms. This can lead to a deeper understanding of the complexity of trauma concepts, its forms of expression and consequences, which may have an impact on the consequences and management of trauma at individual, group, and societal levels. The study group’s multidisciplinary start will evolve towards interdisciplinarity, where theories, concepts, and methods from different fields can enrich each other.

Questions that will be focused include the following:
● How are individuals', groups, and societies’ experiences and expressions of trauma conceptualized and represented within different scientific disciplines, such as medical sciences, social sciences and humanities, etc.?
● How are individuals', groups, and societies’ experiences and expressions of trauma conceptualized and depicted within different art forms and cultural expressions, as in visual arts, performances, film, newspapers, social media, literature, etc.?
● Which tension areas are seen between the different understandings and expressions of trauma, and what significance do these tensions have at individual, group, and societal levels?
● Which consequences do different experiences and expressions of trauma have at individual, group, and societal levels?
● Which interdisciplinary research questions and methods arise for future collaborative research regarding individuals’, groups’ and societies’ experiences and expressions of trauma?