The research group headed by IPU Professor Andreas Hamburger from the Network on Social Trauma has been awarded the Gradiva Award 2020 by the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis for its anthology titled Forced Migration and Social Trauma.
The international research network “Social Trauma” has already produced numerous publications, and now its anthology Forced Migration and Social Trauma: Interdisciplinary Perspectives has been recognized with the Gradiva Award 2020. The Prize is awarded by the American-based National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis.
From the foreword by Ivan Krastev, Chairman of the „Centre for Liberal Strategies“, Sofia and the department „The future of Democracy“, Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), Vienna):
“’Social trauma” turns out to be a key in understanding multifaceted, intertwined and ongoing processes of rethinking and reimagining our own social identities, public policies and global changes. […] The discovery of the ‘other’, of the ‘stranger’ within one’s self could be the key to the rediscovery of solidarity in the new global and mobile world.”
Winning this award is a particular honor for this research group, as Prof. Dr. Andreas Hamburger expressed: “It is anything but expected for a US-American association to recognize a book from a London publisher with European publishers and authors.” At the IPU, Prof. Dr. Hamburger teaches developmental theory and interventions. He released the book together with Camellia Hancheva, Saime Özçürümez, Carmen Scher, Biljana Stanković and Slavica Tutnjević.
Forced Migration and Social Trauma contains a broad range of interdisciplinary and international contributions from psychoanalysis, refugee care, trauma research, sociology and public policy from all along the Balkan refugee route into Europe. Forced Migration is traumatic not only in its country of origin, but also in transit or target countries, frequently determined by the traumatic social history of these countries. This book shows how xenophobia in the countries receiving or transiting refugees can be caused by projection rather than by experience, and may lead to unconscious institutional defenses, such as lack of cooperation between medical, psychotherapeutic, humanitarian and legal institutions.
This volume emerged from the Network on Social Trauma, which the IPU Berlin has been running with universities from the Balkans since 2012 with the support of the DAAD.
The Gradiva Award is granted annually by the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis in various categories. Previous recipients of the award have included