Beyond PTSD: Socio-economic Bereavement in Tigray, Ethiopia

Abstract

By drawing upon data collected through in-depth interviews with 20 victims of the Ethio-Eritrean war, this paper addresses how psychosocial consequences of political war are expressed and conceptualized by people from Tigray, Ethiopia. War events were typically described in terms of their negative impacts on the household's means for income generation, and psychosocial complaints centred on aspects of impaired post-war economy rather than on politically violent experiences. The most reported complaints were (a) household erosion complaints, (b) social marginalization complaints and (c) education abortion complaints. Post-war psychosocial health problems were perceived as consequences of these aspects of impaired household economy, and were described in terms of their negative impacts on future income generation. Informants’ expressions of distress were found to be highly informed by the socio-cultural and socio-economic structures of the Tigrayan society. Being the only study of its kind from this context, the study provides a unique illustration of the limitations of western trauma measures and calls for a context-based conceptualization of trauma.