Home > Social Welfare, Human Rights > Vol 1 No 1 June 2013 Abstract 1
The Ethnobiographical Perspective of Refugees Victim of Ethnic Genocide: The Bosnian Experience of Exile, Identity Ruptures and Cultural Bereavement
Ousmane Bâan
Journal of Social Welfare and Human Rights, 1(1), pp. 01-21.

Abstract
Being the central concepts of this research ubject, Exile and Culture here imply a double temporality: the first one is diachronic, the secondis synchronic. Through the ethno anthropological analysis of their relationship within the genesis of identity, this research enlightens the social and cultural representations of refugee’s victim of ethnic genocide in general. Particularly, the refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina, settled in Quebec since 1992, are the population source of the group of actors selected for this study. The nonprobabilistic technique of the sample constitution process led to the choice of a group of actors such as the three Kučković brothers, inreliance with the research selection’s criteria, based on the originality of their discourse and their high sociocultural representativity. The life histories collected through the use of the ethnobiographical research typology formed the main basis unit of the qualitative process of the semantic content analysis inscribed in the scientific perspective of the phenomenological and comprehensive paradigm. The results of this research have a heuristic and scientific value of a great originality. Their scope is very revealing of the permanent inscription of the historical temporality into the biographical temporality through the expression of the subjective intensity of the refugee’s idiosyncratic and collective true-life experience of their traumatic identity trajectories in ethnic cleansing and genocide context. Such results contribute to the foundation of a veritable anthropology of Exile and Cultural Bereavement phenomena which mediate the experience already irreversible of physical, symbolic, psycho affective and linguistic losses and separations. The final issue of such bereavement hardships of one’swn culture in a new host country and society consists either of the reconstruction of an individual and collective identity and memory already ruptured, or of the indefinite perdurance of a traumatic fixation. Ultimately, the global results of this research include two levels of relevance: through their theoretical relevance, they suggest new research leads and original orientations on many sociological and anthropological dimensions of such a research subject, still less theoretically and empirically explored: trough their social and practical relevance, they are appropriately helpful to the cultural empowerment of many other war refugees communities (Rwandese, Sudanese, Iraqi, Afghan, etc) basically from the definition of a social work practical framework of intervention strategies, which ,beyond social workers, will be able to involve sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, etc. Such a practical framework should be able to take into account the refugees communities endogenous beliefs, knowledge, dignity, expectations and their true-life experiences.

Full Text: PDF

Bâan, Ousmane. (2013). The Ethnobiographical Perspective of Refugees Victim of Ethnic Genocide: The Bosnian Experience of Exile, Identity Ruptures and Cultural Bereavement. Journal of Social Welfare and Human Rights, 1(1), pp. 01-21.

Beaud, J.-P. (1984) « Les techniques d’échantillonnage » In Gauthier B. Recherches sociales, Sillery, P.U.Q., pp.175-200.

Boas, F. (1940) Race, Language and Culture, New-York, The Free Press

Benedict, R. (1967) Échantillons de Civilisation (1934). Paris, Gallimard.

Chauchat, H. (1985) L'enquête en psychosociologie. Paris, P.U.F.

Chaufrault-Duchet, M.F. (1987) « Récit de vie: donnée ou texte ». In Cahiers de recherché sociologique. Vol. 5, no 2, pp. 11-30

Desmarais, D. (1986) Chômage, travail salariéet vie domestique: esquisse d’unetrajectoire sociale. In Desmarais, D. et Grell, p. (sous la direction de). Les récits devie. Montréal, ST-Martin.

Durkheim, E. (1893) De la division du travail social. Paris, Lib. F. Alcan.

Durkheim, E. (1912) Les formes élémentairesde la vie religieuse. Paris, Lib. F.

Epstein, I. (1985) Quantitative and qualitative methods, In Grinnell, R,M. JR., Social Work Research and Evaluation. Itasca, Peacok, pp. 263-274.

Freud, S, (1912) Totem et tabous. Paris, Éditions Payot.

Garde, P. (1992) Vie et mort de la Yougoslavie, Paris, Éditions Fayard, 444p.

Gaussen, F. (1982) Les dieux et la pompe. Paris, Le Monde, 11avril.

Gauthier, B.et al. (1984) Recherche sociale: dela problématique à la collecte des données. Montréal, P.U.Q., 335 P.

Gildas, S. (1995) Géodynamique des migrations internationales dans le monde. Paris, Éditions des Presses Universitaires de France, pp. 107-159.

Gluckmann, M. (1965) Law and ritual in tribal society. Oxford, Blackwell.

Goffman, E. (1973) La mise en scène de la vie quotidienne. 2 vol. Paris, Minuit.

Goffman, E. (1974) Les rites d’interactions. Paris, Minuit.

Gomez, M. (1988) L’expérience de l’exil et la culture. Luxembourg, pp. 1-17.

Griaule, M. (1975) Dieux d’eau. Entretiens avec

Ogotommêli (1947). Paris, Fayard.

Hegel, G.W.F. (1806) La phénoménologie de l’esprit. Paris, P.U.F.

Kardiner, A. (1969) L’individu dans la

société(1939). Paris, Gallimard.

Kroeber, A.L. (1952) The Nature of Culture. Chicago, Chicago University Press.

Larouche, J.-M. (1990) Du déni au travail: Ledeuil, un passage oblige de toute thanatologie. Frontières, pp. 12-15.

Lévi-Strauss, C. (1958) Anthropologie structurale, Paris, Plon.

Levy-Strauss, C. (1971) Les structures élémentaires de la parenté(1949). Paris, La Haye, Mouton

.

Linton, R. (1968) Le fondement culture de la personnalité(1945).Paris, Dunod.

Lipiansky, E.M. (1989) La communication interculturelle. Paris, Éditions Armand Colin, pp. 118-133.

Malinowski, B. (1970) Une théorie scientifique de la culture. Paris, Seuil.

Malinowski, B. (1970) La dynamique de l’évolution culturelle(1945). Paris, Payot.

Marx, K. et Engels, F. (1978) Thèse sur Feuerbach: OEuvres choisies. Moscou, Éditions du Progrès, Thèse Vl, Tome l, p. 8.

Mayer, R. et Ouellet, F. (1991) Méthodologie de recherche pour les intervenants sociaux. Québec, Éditions Gaëtan-Morin, 537 p.

Professor Diarga Ousmane Bakary Bâ is originally from Senegal. After his State Degree in Social Work and his Psychopathology Degree both obtained between Senegal and France, he worked for about ten years in Mental Health as a Social worker and a Psychopathologist. During those years, he also occupied the Program Assistant position in the Health Sciences Division (HSD) at the International Development Research Center (IDRC).He obtained another Master’s Degree in Social Work at Laval University (Quebec, Canada).

He completed his PhD in Sociology-Anthropology in combination with other doctoral seminars in Ethnology also at Laval University in Quebec. His PhD. research thesis is entitled: Exile and Culture: Identity Ruptures, Cultural Bereavement and Integration Process among Refugees Victim of Ethnic Genocide: The Experiences of the Bosnian Refugees settled in Quebec since 1992.He completed two post-doctoral research programs. As the Responsible for the Implementation of the Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) Program in French which he developed and coordinated at the College Universitaire de Saint-Boniface in collaboration with the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Social Work, he has been teaching the history of human evolution and anthropology thinking (Department of Anthropology and Canadian Research Chair on Metis Identity..His areas of Specialization are: Colonial and Postcolonial Studies, Globalization and Ethnic Genocides, Immigrants, Refugees, Trauma and War Affected Peoples, Social Work anti-oppressive perspectives, African Studies. He has been conducting ethnographic researches in diverse areas of interdisciplinary studies in which he has been publishing many books, book chapters and articles.