Please watch our 3 minute video to understand more of what we do and why we do it.
Note for translation: The script of the video is below, so you can translate this page and read along in your own language. You can also click the settings button on the youtube video, select sutitles and select your language.
Why establish a research collaborative?
MiStory is an acronym for Multicultural Study of Trauma Recovery. MiStory began with the impulse to hear women’s voices about their trauma recovery journey. We wanted to do this around the world because we knew that that experience was fundamentally contextual and cultural. We also wanted to do this in a safe and secure manner so that the survivors walked away from the interview feeling satisfied, and maybe a little bit better for having participated in our research. We wanted to listen for culture and gender and selfhood, discovering more about how the trauma recovery journey is shaped by context, and to learn how the survivors found what they needed to grow and thrive.
MiStory is about discovery
Research is needed to develop new methods that can discover how culture, gender and the self interact to shape trauma recovery. We are developing new approaches and perspectives to uncover the varieties of ways that survivors go about their recovery. We are creating our instruments from survivors’ voices, developing culturally and trauma-informed theories and methods to understand culture, gender, and trauma recovery.
Global sites generate science and scientists
We have over 30 collaborators in over a dozen countries working together on shared projects. Each of our collaborators are investigators in the trauma recovery process, and they bring vital disciplinary perspectives to our project. Even more, our central goal is listening for culture, aiming to sensitively incorporate cultural perspectives in all that we do. Our global laboratory sites are training grounds for graduate students and teams of faculty. Because these scholars in our research sites approach the topic from their own lens, this further expands what we can discover. Using project-based learning for students and postdocs in research sites around the world has created the opportunity to develop a cadre of feminist scholars, as well as a body of science in trauma recovery.
Safe and secure interviewing of vulnerable survivors
The safety and security of our participants is our top priority. We are working with extremely vulnerable people who may have never told their story. We have over 10 years of field trials that have established the safety of our protocols. In our interviews, we avoid re-traumatization, we empower the survivors to take charge of their interview, we safeguard them by providing them resources if they choose to use them, and we focus on meaning and recovery, not abuse and pain.
MiStory has a promising future
MiStory is exciting and productive. Each year, we understand more, develop new tools, compare cultures, and just generally expand the science of culture and trauma recovery.