Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Mannell J., Ahmad A., Hughes P., Ahmad L., Işil Ülman F. Y., Andrabi S., et al.
Diğer Ülkelerden Üniversiteler Tarafından Desteklenmiş Proje, 2018 - 2020
Exploring Narrative Storytelling as Mental Health
Support for Women Experiencing Gender-based Violence in High Prevalence
Settings
Type
of award being applied for: Large Partnership Award
Importance:
The aim of our proposed partnership is to explore
the potential for narrative storytelling as a culturally-relevant approach to
responding to trauma from gender-based violence (GBV) against women in high prevalence
settings. Our partnership focuses on settings or includes researchers and civil
society partners from settings where over 50% of women experience GBV, specifically:
Afghanistan, Kashmir (India), Tunisia, and Turkey. We will
bring together academics, poets, civil society organisations, and feminist
activists working on GBV in the UK and across the Middle East, North Africa and
Asia. Our partnership includes expertise from the medical science (psychiatry,
psychology) and humanities (humanitarian ethics, women’s studies, literature
studies), which we will draw on to develop a therapeutic approach to
GBV-related trauma among women in these settings.
Gender-based violence (GBV) refers to violent
acts that seek to enforce ideals of ‘appropriate’ masculinity or femininity,
and can be perpetrated by partners, family members, communities or state agents. As a broad term which includes domestic violence, psychological
abuse, sexual assault, honour killings and acid attacks, GBV is a significant
global health problem predominantly affecting women and girls with severe
consequences for their mental health. Women who have experienced one or more forms of GBV
have a heightened risk of severe mental disorders, including depression, post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, alcohol and
drug abuse, and suicidal
ideation .
In high prevalence settings, the mental
health effects of GBV are often further compounded by social and structural
norms that condone violence (16). These social norms contribute to the extremely high rates of GBV
in these settings, deter women from reporting violence, and lead to the denial
of GBV and its mental health effects by both communities and governments. The normalisation of GBV is also
widespread and often condoned by the state through the absence of appropriate
policy responses. Socially
acceptable and culturally-relevant solutions are urgently needed for these
settings.
Storytelling is widely used as a means of
personal expression in response to violence in the settings included in our
proposal, drawing on their shared socio-cultural origins as ancient Persian
societies. This has led to the development of storytelling activities for
women as a means of giving voice and empowerment. However, narrative storytelling interventions have not yet been
explored in relation to the mental health of women who have experienced GBV
because of different epistemologies and methodological approaches. To create a
culturally meaningful therapeutic and social intervention for women who have experienced
GBV requires new collaborations between medical sciences (mental health) and
humanities (literature, gender, ethics).
From a biomedical sciences perspective,
narratives are a potentially effective tool for addressing the mental ill
health (e.g. symptoms of trauma) that arises from violence related to conflict. Narrative therapies, particularly Narrative Exposure Therapy
(NET), has demonstrated promise in addressing post-traumatic stress disorder
and depression in refugee populations and with children. However these have yet to be used to address the trauma of
experiencing GBV. From a humanities perspective, storytelling has a significant
symbolic role in the cultural narrative of Persian societies, and
group storytelling between women provides a means for highly vulnerable women
to tell their stories through an act that offers the possibility to reinterpret
and formulate new identities. In this way, stories provide a space for reinforcing social
representations of GBV, but also challenging them. We can change the stories we
tell or tell them in different ways, which offers a powerful tool for
reinterpreting identities, shifting claims of difference and challenging
commonly shared values.
These two perspectives are highly complementary and yet different disciplinary approaches and funding regimes have limited the exploration of narrative storytelling as an intervention that could potentially improve mental health outcomes. Our unique partnership aims to address this gap.
Selected Sources