Roberto Beneduce, Ethnopsychiatrist and Anthropologist (Italy) who took part in the conference 02:
Stories for Healing?
https://youtu.be/pq0o8ekOOOY
en français[Podcast in French]
Roberto Beneduce, psychiatrist and anthropologist, is a professor of medical anthropology at the Department of Cultures, Politics and Societies (University of Turin) & Director of the Frantz Fanon Centre, which he founded in 1996 with the aim of building a critical ethno-psychiatry.
His clinical work and ethnographic research concern the condition of immigrants and refugees, as well as the treatment of torture victims, the anthropology of social and political violence in sub-Saharan Africa (Cameroon, Mali, Democratic Republic of the Congo), changes in local therapeutic knowledge (churches of healing).
— an interview conducted by Vassili Silovic, author and director of documentary films, recorded at Les Champs Libres (Rennes) in December 2023 in the framework of the serie “What stories for our time?”.
Roberto Beneduce
« Fight with stories indifference »
I could start by saying that in their stories, asylum seekers' stories entitled to international protection, there's a real fight for the truth. They have to fight to be recognised as sincere individuals who tell the truth, who aren't making things up.
Question the story.
When dealing with migrants or asylum seekers, we recognise our ignorance. We know almost nothing about their journeys, be they human, political or religious. As operators, social workers, or clinical workers, we know odd details about their country of origin, maybe a few words of their language, but we know nothing of their personal history. So, to suspect they're not telling the truth above all, reflects our epistemic anxiety.
Believe the story.
This happens in greater detail when collecting their stories, their memories. It all proceeds in this opaqueness. There's always been suspicion towards marginalised sectors of any society. Those at the bottom of the ladder, the inferior, are not believed. The situation is a reminder of the colonies. The colonised might say things but not necessarily the truth. Referring to colonial-era anthropology, it's often noted that it's difficult to create a relationship of trust and a direct, sincere exchange with informants. The more a nation-state fabricates its systems of realities and truths, recognition of an individual with its own bureaucratic definitions, the more things will escape us.
The opacity of the narrative.
Suspicion is at the heart of bureaucracy. One could say that as each bureaucracy progresses, the more it creates zones of suspicion and inadequacies. I remind my colleagues of Abedemalek Sayyad's words when he said we must aim for the opacity of authentic discourse. True discourse is always somewhat opaque.
When we try to understand and see everything clearly, we're probably already mistaken.
Confront the coherence of the story.
Migrants arriving in Europe are well aware they'll be exposed to a test of truth. They know this harsh examination process and are prepared to confront a system which will subject them to an examination of truth. They are pushed to tell the truth, but according to our criteria of truth and credibility.
The story must be coherent,
