Vortrag
"Some Reflections on Childhood, Displacement and Trauma in the 20th Century"

PD Dr. habil. Friederike Kind-Kovács hält im Rahmen des Workshops "Children and Crisis. Trauma, Epidemics, and Children’s Well-Being in Cross-Cultural and Historical Perspective" der University of Texas at Austin den Vortrag "Some Reflections on Childhood, Displacement and Trauma in the 20th Century".

Abstract:

The presentation focuses on children’s experiences in one of the 20th century’s condensed periods of fundamental and abrupt political and social change: the post-WWI period in Central Europe which came to witness multiple crises at the same time. Like today’s children in Europe whose lives have been deeply affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, the implications of the Russian War against Ukraine, and more recently also by the energy crisis, I think it is valuable to have a look at the past and draw some parallels between children’s experiences today and their experiences in the post-WWI period. I will engage with the long-term implications of children’s unaccompanied migration for their physical and mental well-being and their identities and discuss if we can consider children’s displacement as a form of non-physical violence which resulted – among some children – in trauma.