'I Fall Down, I Get Up': Stories of Survival and Resistance Following Civil War in Sierra Leone

The academic study of how people respond to adverse life experiences has been dominated by Western conceptualisations of distress, resilience and growth. The current literature base regarding responses to adversity has been criticised for focusing on one response trajectory (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; PTSD). This criticism stems from the privileging of Western understandings of self and to neglecting to consider sufficiently the role of context (the available social, cultural and political discourses). The significance of this void in the literature is that it has led to the development of models and theories which could be considered culturally insensitive, if applied outside of the context from which they have been derived.