Project description
The impact of war and political violence on children
Among the ruins of war and the chaos of political turmoil, a haunting concern is the scars etched into the minds of children. With the support of Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, the RETROCHILD project unearths the psychological toll of war and political violence on young lives between 1945 and 1960. This epoch, marked by the Second World War’s aftermath, witnessed numerous children caught in the crossfire, their innocence shattered by trauma. Focusing on the Italian-Slovenian borderlands but with a global perspective, RETROCHILD examines trauma and resilience as lenses to dissect how society, experts and affected children themselves defined and coped with the psychological wounds associated with this experience. RETROCHILD also analyses related interventions across medical, social and legal systems.
Objective
RETROCHILD explores the (psychological) impacts of war and other forms of political violence on children (age 0-18) from a historical perspective relying on trauma and resilience as analytical concepts. Temporally, it is focused on the post World War II period (19451960). Geographically, it explores what is now the borderland between Italy and Slovenia, but also aims for a global perspective on the phenomena at hand. Its main objectives are to explore how the meanings surrounding the concept of childhood trauma (or resilience) were defined by different actors, ranging from the experts who worked with children affected by political violence to the children themselves and also to uncover the political motivations behind the narratives relating to and the treatment of children who were considered traumatised or psychologically damaged. In order to examine the universalisations related to the meanings and motivations behind these, the project applies a novel retrograde approach, which, instead of the events presumably involving psychological distress, develops the analysis from three subsequent examples of social, medical and legal interventions: the first intervention involves orphans and abandoned children (WP1), the second children in psychiatric care (WP2) and the third juvenile delinquents (WP3). RETROCHILDs unique interlinked focus on interventions within the medical, social and criminal justice systems in the border area will reveal original insights into the nature of the experiences of war and the socialist childhood, as well as the functioning of political power. In addition to questioning the universal (Western) notions of trauma and victimhood, the project will use childhood narratives in a highly contested border region to challenge the conventional divide between socialist and non-socialist (or eastern and western) understandings of social welfare, education and mental illness.
Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European FellowshipsCoordinator
1165 Kobenhavn
Denmark