Trauma, Empowerment and the Right to Health in an Era of Forced Displacement

This year’s Global Health Summer School will therefore focus on trauma, empowerment and the right to health in the context of forced displacement and flight. Throughout our programme we encourage an intersectional and emancipatory perspective. We will gain insights into global health architecture and its interplay with migration politics. Academic debates on trauma, resilience and healing that consider the role of culture, society and politics will be discussed. We will ask how human rightsbased and decolonial approaches to trauma and psychosocial work change the way we think about violence and health. To do this we will juxtapose the lived experiences of migrant people and refugees with critiques of border regimes and asylum systems of the Global North. The concept of “necropower” may help us to better understand the processes exacerbating the potential for death and the racialised targeting of “immigrant bodies”. We will attempt to put our reflections to use as health professionals, researchers and/or activists fighting for human rights and health equity.

Based on a process-oriented and trauma-sensitive approach in itself, the summer school aims to create a space for global learning in which everybody feels safe, acknowledged and in control of their learning experience. We will follow the methodology of trauma-sensitive classrooms and provide significant space for individual reflection, interpersonal exchange, bodily exercises, breaks and nurturing activities.

In the Global Health Summer students and practitioners from various countries participate in dialogue with professionals and activists from diverse backgrounds in order to examine problems and discuss potential solutions. We focus on how we, as health professionals and political activists, can have a positive impact in attaining health for all.