Re-placement of selves – An anthropological study of place-based engagement in a Danish community health center
Abstract: Abstract: This thesis is an anthropological study on how a group of people suffering from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder [PTSD] construct meaning in a community center in Copenhagen. The specific aim of this thesis is to investigate how place can be understood as a factor that plays into well-being and recovery. Based on a case study of a Danish community health center, this study shows how users construct significant lives through stories of their past. The accounts of their past are a way of escaping their present, and, the social practice is mediated by the place. Applying the Foucauldian concept of Heterotopia, the community center is seen as a refuge – a counter place to societal order - and takes on emancipatory character for its users. However, it is precisely this counter-character of the place that prevents the users from rejoining the world outside.
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