manas
manas

A Healing-centred approach to Justice and Recovery

Insights­ - Into the intricate dynamics of collective violence through a deeper understanding of people’s lived experiences.

Effective intervention - Through strategies more attuned to people's lived experiences and cultural environments. 

manas

Manas is dedicated to enhancing the work of organisations dedicated to the Justice and recovery from mass violence by providing psychological insights rooted in cultural understanding. Our goal is to offer a unique perspective that aligns more closely with the lived experiences of those affected by mass violence. 

By amplifying the voices of the most marginalised within their context, we foster more effective recovery while also helping organisations achieve their specific goals in tackling mass violence.

 

Our Services

Our Work in Action

Our Services

We aim to enhance the work of organisations dedicated to the Justice and Recovery from mass violence by  embedding within their practice psychological insights rooted in cultural understanding.

What We Offer ›

manas

Research 

We facilitate culturally-informed psychological research that captures the nuances of people’s experiences for more effective interventions.

Strategic guidance

We provide technical (MHPSS) guidance on strategic approaches to recovery to inform policies and programming.

Strengthening practices

We support professional practice through reflective spaces, consultations, and trainings.

Enabling advocacy

We offer emotional grounding to survivors and activists during strategic advocacy events to support their voices.

Our Expertise

We believe that it is precisely by highlighting the conditions offered by each culture to think about human suffering and violence that it becomes possible to capture the invariants of the human condition.

 

Explore Our Expertise in Action

manas

Understanding the impact of mass violence

- Conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) and torture

- Perpetrating violence

Shaping approaches to recovery

- Peacebuilding, Transitional and Criminal Justice

- Supporting the Healing

How We Make A Difference

A Role for Psychological Insights

 

With our decades of practice with conflict-affected populations, we have noticed the limited use of psychological insights to make sense of the mass violence that occurred and its consequences onto communities, its victims, and its perpetrators. We also witnessed, at times, its perceived lack of legitimacy among decision-makers. As a result, the psychological dimension is offered limited space to inform the design of the multiple layers of interventions at the interface with Justice, Recovery, and Prevention.

Despite their inextricable relationship, the professionals in these fields have often disclosed not feeling equipped with the tools to fully engage with the psychological dimension. They have also deplored the lack of opportunities to share multidisciplinary spaces to develop joint reflections regarding the interconnection between the fields.

We have observed over many years the increased awareness and genuine curiosity from the fields of Transitional Justice, Peacebuilding, and International Criminal Justice around the role of psychological suffering, collective and transgenerational trauma play in mass atrocities. The rise in the awareness of deploying survivor-centric and trauma-informed approaches across the fields contributed to legitimise its core role.

The role of psychological insights has gained legitimacy when  referenced in the highest diplomatic platforms to better integrate in practice the relationship: MHPSS-Peacebuilding. The two fields in practice have operated separately despite having common missions: restoring social fabrics affected by mass violence and preventing its re-occurrence.

  • Peacebuilding (i.e. Transitional justice, Reconciliation, Restorative and Retributive justice, and Social Transformation) has traditionally followed the approach to focus its efforts on social cohesion, resilience-building, peaceful mediation, and conflict resolution to decrease violent behaviours and to address societal pain and injustice.
  • While MHPSS has borrowed a biomedical framing to make sense of individual and community suffering and to establish trauma-recovery. In doing so, the field undermined the central role of structural violence and the social-cultural determinants in the understanding of people’s experiences of suffering.

The political push has enabled further integration of the fields that now attempt to operate under a framework of healing-centred engagement. Individuals’ experience of suffering can be reframed in the light of broader collective and social determinants that have shaped their inner world and wellbeing.

Manas was founded to respond to this need: we strive to make accessible and help embedding culturally-grounded psychological insights within organisations which tackle mass violence and restore its impact on the social fabric.

Why Culture Matters

 

At Manas, we recognise a significant oversight in Western systems of thinking taking limited account of the cultural diversity that shapes daily lived experiences of life and suffering. The limitations, which we have observed in our own professional practice and in the related fields (Therapeutic, Legal), are both ethical and theoretical. ‘Culture’ seems to be randomly used, misused, or not used at all when it comes to the understanding of mass violence and the experiences of its participants – for both victims and perpetrators.

The inconsistency raises further concerns when universalising statements are used to capture the experience of pain, loss, and despair of people subjected to persecution. As a result, organisations and practitioners are often left inadequately prepared, lacking the necessary tools to understand how culture shapes ways-of-being in a turbulent world.

Despite the push of MHPSS disciplines and movements (Transcultural Psychiatry, Medical Anthropology, Global Mental Health) to bring intercultural discussions to the forefront, significant internal disagreements persist on how the experience of suffering, grief, pain, trauma and death can be captured across cultural contexts. They revolve around two conflicting viewpoints:

  • Inflexible universalism, which assumes a uniformity in the experience of suffering (and, therefore, intervention) irrespective of cultural context.
  • Dogmatic relativism, which argues for the unique, incomparable nature of cultural experiences, consequently hindering the potential benefit from larger-scale worldwide interventions.

Manas' mission transcends these debates and polarised views. We believe that it is precisely by highlighting the conditions offered by each culture to think about human suffering and violence that it becomes possible to capture the invariants of the human condition.

A Healing-centred approach to Justice and Recovery

Insights­ - Into the intricate dynamics of collective violence through a deeper understanding of people’s lived experiences.

Effective intervention - Through strategies more attuned to people's lived experiences and cultural environments. 

manas

Manas is dedicated to enhancing the work of organisations dedicated to the Justice and recovery from mass violence by providing psychological insights rooted in cultural understanding. Our goal is to offer a unique perspective that aligns more closely with the lived experiences of those affected by mass violence. 

By amplifying the voices of the most marginalised within their context, we foster more effective recovery while also helping organisations achieve their specific goals in tackling mass violence.

 

Our Services

Our Work in Action

Our Services

We aim to enhance the work of organisations dedicated to the Justice and Recovery from mass violence by  embedding within their practice psychological insights rooted in cultural understanding.

What We Offer ›

manas

Research 

We facilitate culturally-informed psychological research that captures the nuances of people’s experiences for more effective interventions.

Strategic guidance

We provide technical (MHPSS) guidance on strategic approaches to recovery to inform policies and programming.

Strengthening practices

We support professional practice through reflective spaces, consultations, and trainings.

Enabling advocacy

We offer emotional grounding to survivors and activists during strategic advocacy events to support their voices.

Our Expertise

We believe that it is precisely by highlighting the conditions offered by each culture to think about human suffering and violence that it becomes possible to capture the invariants of the human condition.

 

Explore Our Expertise in Action

manas

Understanding the impact of mass violence

- Conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) and torture

- Perpetrating violence

Shaping approaches to recovery

- Peacebuilding, Transitional and Criminal Justice

- Supporting the Healing

How We Make A Difference

A Role for Psychological Insights

 

With our decades of practice with conflict-affected populations, we have noticed the limited use of psychological insights to make sense of the mass violence that occurred and its consequences onto communities, its victims, and its perpetrators. We also witnessed, at times, its perceived lack of legitimacy among decision-makers. As a result, the psychological dimension is offered limited space to inform the design of the multiple layers of interventions at the interface with Justice, Recovery, and Prevention.

Despite their inextricable relationship, the professionals in these fields have often disclosed not feeling equipped with the tools to fully engage with the psychological dimension. They have also deplored the lack of opportunities to share multidisciplinary spaces to develop joint reflections regarding the interconnection between the fields.

We have observed over many years the increased awareness and genuine curiosity from the fields of Transitional Justice, Peacebuilding, and International Criminal Justice around the role of psychological suffering, collective and transgenerational trauma play in mass atrocities. The rise in the awareness of deploying survivor-centric and trauma-informed approaches across the fields contributed to legitimise its core role.

The role of psychological insights has gained legitimacy when  referenced in the highest diplomatic platforms to better integrate in practice the relationship: MHPSS-Peacebuilding. The two fields in practice have operated separately despite having common missions: restoring social fabrics affected by mass violence and preventing its re-occurrence.

  • Peacebuilding (i.e. Transitional justice, Reconciliation, Restorative and Retributive justice, and Social Transformation) has traditionally followed the approach to focus its efforts on social cohesion, resilience-building, peaceful mediation, and conflict resolution to decrease violent behaviours and to address societal pain and injustice.
  • While MHPSS has borrowed a biomedical framing to make sense of individual and community suffering and to establish trauma-recovery. In doing so, the field undermined the central role of structural violence and the social-cultural determinants in the understanding of people’s experiences of suffering.

The political push has enabled further integration of the fields that now attempt to operate under a framework of healing-centred engagement. Individuals’ experience of suffering can be reframed in the light of broader collective and social determinants that have shaped their inner world and wellbeing.

Manas was founded to respond to this need: we strive to make accessible and help embedding culturally-grounded psychological insights within organisations which tackle mass violence and restore its impact on the social fabric.

Why Culture Matters

 

At Manas, we recognise a significant oversight in Western systems of thinking taking limited account of the cultural diversity that shapes daily lived experiences of life and suffering. The limitations, which we have observed in our own professional practice and in the related fields (Therapeutic, Legal), are both ethical and theoretical. ‘Culture’ seems to be randomly used, misused, or not used at all when it comes to the understanding of mass violence and the experiences of its participants – for both victims and perpetrators.

The inconsistency raises further concerns when universalising statements are used to capture the experience of pain, loss, and despair of people subjected to persecution. As a result, organisations and practitioners are often left inadequately prepared, lacking the necessary tools to understand how culture shapes ways-of-being in a turbulent world.

Despite the push of MHPSS disciplines and movements (Transcultural Psychiatry, Medical Anthropology, Global Mental Health) to bring intercultural discussions to the forefront, significant internal disagreements persist on how the experience of suffering, grief, pain, trauma and death can be captured across cultural contexts. They revolve around two conflicting viewpoints:

  • Inflexible universalism, which assumes a uniformity in the experience of suffering (and, therefore, intervention) irrespective of cultural context.
  • Dogmatic relativism, which argues for the unique, incomparable nature of cultural experiences, consequently hindering the potential benefit from larger-scale worldwide interventions.

Manas' mission transcends these debates and polarised views. We believe that it is precisely by highlighting the conditions offered by each culture to think about human suffering and violence that it becomes possible to capture the invariants of the human condition.