The climax of the film Black Panther (directed by Ryan Coogler, 2018) shows the two heirs claiming the Black Panther’s mantle battling it out in a tunnel that is modernity's dark hull. My article teases out the complex relationship between the film’s doubled Black Panthers as a hall of mirrors, where the African American filmmaker and the assembled African and Afro-diasporic cast confront each other, their collective memories of slavery, and the complex relationship of those on the African continent to those memories. What in the structure of cinema might take us out of this hall of mirrors to a futurity beyond trauma? In answer, I offer a reading of Wakanda as “Alegropolis”: a lavish and loving cinematic creation that draws on Afro-Futurist play with temporality and technology to reinscribe this circum-Atlantic history within a planetary frame. An affiliative afro-modernity is generated thereby, which invites a global audience to share the film’s ethical and emotional concerns as what Michael Rothberg calls “implicated subjects.”

This study explores the mental health difficulties associated with severe trauma as experienced by refugees and asylum seekers, and issues related to psychological treatments. An evaluation was conducted of a culturally adapted cognitive therapy group programme for Tamil refugees and asylum seekers in the Wandsworth IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) service. Data were examined from 16 Tamil participants who accessed the service between 2014 and 2015 and subsequently engaged in the group programme between 2015 and 2016. The IAPT minimum data set (PHQ9, GAD-7, Phobia scale and WSAS) and IES-R (Impact of Events Scale Revised) were used as quantitative measures. Qualitative feedback about the programme was also obtained. A positive change in the wellbeing of participants was indicated by a reduction in the severity of negative symptoms for all metrics and qualitative feedback provided additional evidence that participants had benefited from the programme. The implications of these findings are discussed.

In 2014/2015, International Medical Corps (IMC) operated two Ebola Treatment Units (ETUs) in Liberia and three in Sierra Leone when the Ebola virus disease epidemic killed over 11,000 people across Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. As Ebola cases declined in Liberia, IMC Psychosocial teams transitioned to working in communities highly affected by the epidemic. This article describes IMC's experience with developing and implementing a community-based mental health and psychosocial group intervention in a rural, severely affected Liberian town – Mawah – where 46 out of approximately 800 community members were infected, 39 of whom died. In this paper, we present how the group intervention, named ‘Social Reconnection Groups’, was developed and implemented. We then discuss intervention strengths, challenges, key lessons learnt and recommendations for how Social Reconnection Groups can be adapted for use in similar settings.

The Indian residential school (IRS) system in Canada ran for over a century until the last school closed in 1996. Conditions in the IRSs resulted in generations of Indigenous children being exposed to chronic childhood adversity. The current investigation used data from the 2008–2010 First Nations Regional Health Survey to explore whether parental IRS attendance was associated with suicidal thoughts and attempts in childhood, adolescence and in adulthood among a representative sample of First Nations peoples living on-reserve across Canada. Analyses of the adult sample in Study 1 (unweighted n=7716; weighted n=186,830) revealed that having a parent who attended IRS was linked with increased risk for suicidal thoughts and attempts in adolescence and adulthood. Although females were negatively affected by having a parent who attended IRS, the link with suicidal ideation in adulthood was greater for males. Analyses of the youth sample in Study 2 (unweighted n=2883; weighted n=30,190) confirmed that parental IRS attendance was associated with an increased risk for suicidal ideation and attempts. In contrast to the adult sample, parental IRS attendance had a significantly greater relation with suicidal ideation among female youth. A significant interaction also emerged between parental IRS attendance and age in the youth sample, with the influence of parental attendance being particularly strong among youth ages 12–14, compared with those 15–17 years. These results underscore the need for culturally relevant early interventions for the large proportions of Indigenous children and youth intergenerationally affected by IRSs and other collective traumas.

The decade spanning from 1968 to 1980, known also as the anni di piombo, is among the most difficult and traumatic periods in Italian post-war history. One of the most memorable years of this decade was 1977, when a new student movement stood up against the established order. The so-called Movement of ‘77 manifested itself among others in Bologna, where it had a predominantly creative and joyful character. Nevertheless, the protests were violently struck down when left-wing student Francesco Lorusso was killed by police forces during clashes, resulting in an urban guerriglia. This incident worsened the relationship between the historical left and younger generations of (more radical) left-wing activists, and marked the beginning of the end of the Movement of ‘77. The chapter on 1977 was, however, never really closed, and a ‘counter-memory’ has continued to divide the local community ever since. In this article, we shall see how different memory communities in Bologna have dealt with this ‘collective trauma’, focusing on the former Movement of ‘77 and the way it has used public commemorative rituals to rebuild a collective identity for itself in subsequent years.