The Mastura-Institute for Practical Knowledge: De-Colonialisation of Knowledge
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Background
As part of the MHPSS focus, a variety of training programmes are offered in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and Iraq for local psychological and psychosocial professionals. Many of these measures are carried out by international trainers who have little knowledge of the local contexts, are aimed at professional, academically trained specialists and teach trauma concepts and therapeutic or counselling approaches developed in Western contexts. Such training courses often fail to meet the needs of local counsellors who deal with cases of complex violence on a daily basis and who themselves live in violent circumstances and/or are threatened and stigmatised because of their work. They also tend to overlook and overwrite locally developed concepts and practices for dealing with the consequences of violence.
Women Anfal survivors in the Germian region, for example, reject a psychological definition of their suffering and are involved in collective structures for a remembrance forum, which is intended to be a place of remembrance and social centre for joint remembrance work and joint activities (link to the remembrance forum project). Another example is dealing with conflicts in the family context. Colleagues at the KHANZAD Women’s Centre and other state and civil society counselling projects for women in violent situations have a wealth of expertise in women-centred family mediation (link to detailed description), which takes into account the centrality of the family in Kurdish society.
Founding
Against this background, Haukari e.V., together with Kurdish and South African colleagues, founded the Mastura Institute of Applied Science in Psychosocial Work in the city of Sulaimania in 2022. The institute’s name-giver, Mastura Ardalan, is considered the first widely recognised female historiographer of the 19th century in the Middle East and worked in Sulaimania.
Mention conference?
The Institute brings together researchers, lecturers, practitioners and students to reflect on and develop psychosocial approaches. The aim is to strengthen local concepts and practices of psychosocial work and to create platforms for transnational and cross-context knowledge debates. The Institute sees itself as a contribution to the international discussion on the de-colonisation of psychosocial knowledge and strives for long-term joint research and practical projects.
Methodological, epistemic and political tensions in the international exchange of knowledge are being addressed: Which schools of thought and practical approaches exist in ‘West’ and ‘South’? How can different forms of knowledge be linked in dialogue? And how can experts from the region be recognised as active knowledge producers? How can concepts from different contexts be discussed without reproducing colonial thought structures? What role do language, translation, positivism and cultural attributions play in the transfer of knowledge? Which terms – such as ‘trauma’ or ‘resilience’ – carry which connotations? And how can psychosocial practice in crisis contexts be based on local knowledge without romanticising or essentialising it?
Goals and Approaches
The aim of the Mastura Institute’s work is to productively combine locally rooted knowledge, international reflection and interdisciplinary approaches in order to make psychosocial support in regions characterised by violence and crises more sustainable, fairer and more effective.
Interdisciplinary Discourse
Training, research and exchange should not be limited to concepts and methods of psycho-logical and psychosocial work, but should also initiate broader conceptual debates on underlying assumptions, world views and self-images. The Institute should promote continuous and intensive exchange between contexts and thereby work out differences and commonalities. It should not only contribute to strengthening local capacities in psychological and psychosocial work, but also to broader debates about colonial mechanisms in knowledge production and knowledge transfer and the de-colonisation of psychological knowledge.
Glocal Approach
The Mastura Institute critically examines which approaches are effective in psychosocial work in the Kurdish context – and which are less so. At the same time, Kurdish professionals are encouraged to systematise and document their own methods and contribute them to international professional debates. To this end, the Mastura Institute has set up a ‘global’ team: Experts from Kurdistan, Germany and South Africa with different disciplines jointly lead discussions, workshops and seminars with creative, participatory and practical approaches.
Linking Theory and Practice
Specific efforts are being made to break down hierarchies between academia and practice and to reduce barriers to academic discourse through logistical support and the promotion of local languages. Academically, the project aims to establish transnational exchange platforms and strengthen local perspectives in international debates on knowledge production in the psychosocial field. In this way, the project contributes to the de-colonisation of psychosocial theory and practice. In practice, the focus is on strengthening and systematising locally developed, contextualised concepts and methods. In addition, the link between theory and practice in local academic training is to be improved in order to develop and professionally implement customised psychosocial support services for people affected by violence, displacement, conflicts and crises in the long term.
Activities
- Continuous debates through regular open events for professionals, students and researchers from the fields of social work and social sciences
- Workshops on the ‘contextualisation of psychosocial knowledge’ with participants from psychology, sociology, social work, philosophy, education, law and art, working in psychosocial practice, research and teaching
- Mentoring and hospitation programme launched in cooperation with the Department of Social Work at the University of Sulaimani, where students can complete internships
- Training opportunities for local counsellors, mediators and supervisors
- Establishment of a pool of supervisors who develop and offer locally contextualised supervision approaches – both for NGOs and for state structures
In 2024, the Mastura Institute, HAUKARI e.V. and the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) jointly published the discussion paper ‘Contextualizing Psychosocial Knowledge – Experiences, challenges and recommendations from a cross-contextual reflection process at the Mastura Institute of Applied Science in Psychosocial Work, Slemani, Kurdistan Region of Iraq’. The paper is based on a series of workshops from May 2023 to May 2024 with academics and practitioners of psychosocial work from Kurdistan-Iraq, South Africa and Germany, supported by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).
Click here for the discussion paper.
Supporters and Partners
Since 2021, HAUKARI e.V. has received various grants for the institute from the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) as part of the regional programme ‘MHPSS in the Middle East’. In addition, the work of the institute has been funded by the State Agency for Development Cooperation Berlin, Brandeburg (LEZ).