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This month we speak to Dr Roghieh Dehghan Zaklaki to find out more about her research.
What is your role and what does it involve?
As a Wellcome Clinical Research Fellow, I wear two hats simultaneously. Ethics and the mental health of traumatised refugees are the focus of my academic work, which has always been in an equally challenging and fruitful conversation with my clinical work as a GP. This conversation between theory and practice is at the heart of all my projects.
My research explores moral injury, a term in trauma discourse referring to survivors’ responses to the transgression of their deeply held moral beliefs. It is a relatively new notion in need of extensive empirical research and conceptual clarification through diverse ethnical and experiential narratives. I, therefore, use a phenomenological approach to investigate life-history narratives of Iranian torture survivors, followed by focus groups with healthcare professionals.
The multidisciplinary nature of my PhD research means that the Health Humanities graduate programme run by the Centre for Multidisciplinary and Intercultural Inquiry (CMII) is truly the ideal place for me. With strong links across UCL, it is co-directed by Prof. Sonu Shamdasani, an expert in the history of mental health and psychiatry, Prof. James Wilson, a philosopher and ethicist, who is my primary PhD supervisor, and Dr Leah Sidi, lecturer in Health Humanities, focusing on feminism, theatre and mental health. The Centre fosters academic discussions between internationally-acclaimed experts in humanities, social science and medicine. I also benefit from the significant expertise within the Institute for Global Health, where my secondary supervisor, Dr Jenevieve Mannell, undertakes multidisciplinary global health research on gender and violence.
How are you improving the health of the public?
My hope is that by developing the novel concept of moral injury further, my project will play a part in reshaping mental health services for refugees, by ensuring that these services engage in culturally and socio-politically meaningful ways with survivors of traumatic events.
Traumas bear long-term mental health implications, yet despite robust evidence demonstrating the poor outcomes of traumatised refugees’ mental health treatments, existing treatment modalities, including psychological services, are under-used by them. This is partly due to their needs being inadequately met by these services but also to the possible lack of accurate translations for terms addressing emotions, which may differ from or be inefficiently captured by Western epistemologies and psychological concepts.
If the notion of moral injury is to adequately serve the needs of traumatised refugees, a non-Eurocentric understanding of the concept is needed, with epistemic parameters grounded in lived experience.
What do you find most interesting or enjoyable about your work?
Currently, the most enjoyable part of my project is a creative public engagement activity initiated in response to my literature review’s findings, which revealed that political divisions and stigmas attached to refugee-status and mental health among Iranian diasporas stifle the possibility of emotional support for Iranian refugee trauma survivors.
The creative engagement activity explores challenges to solidarity and empathy within Iranian communities. It was made possible by successfully applying for a research engagement fund from the Wellcome Trust, with the support of Helen Craig from UCL Engagement whom I am currently still collaborating with along with a wonderful team of UK-based artists from the Middle East: animation artist Majid Adin and multidisciplinary artists Maryam Hashemi and Lola Awada, as well as Dr Sohail Jannessari, our public engagement consultant and a scholar at King’s College London. Through carefully thought-out creative workshops, we aim to explore strategies to overcome internal community tensions and stigmas that negatively impact the wellbeing of Iranian refugees.
As a starting point, we chose a theme around which all groups of Iranian diasporas find unity in: Nowruz, the Iranian New Year. Using the language and symbols surrounding that special event, community members will be encouraged to come together and participate in creating different artefacts that will become part of a public exhibition during Nowruz 2023.
How have cross-disciplinary collaborations shaped your research?
To obtain diverse perspectives for theorising race, embodiment and intersectionality in my research, I draw on the expertise of an array of excellent scholars, by participating in events and seminars across disciplines, including the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation and the Migration Research Unit. As a member, I also benefit from the skills within the UCL Centre for Gender and Global Health.
To enhance the empirical part of my research, I actively engage with Iranian communities in the UK and with human rights charities that provide mental health services to traumatised refugees. In addition, I have established working relationships with academics at the University of Edinburgh and of Copenhagen, whose research focuses on traumatised populations.
What advice would you offer to others interested in developing cross-disciplinary research?
I would offer the advice given to me by my own mentor. Though cliché, it remains very true: Go for your passion! Passion drives you and is infectious; it attracts collaborators with common grounds but different perspectives and skills. It is fun and inspiring to work with people who love what they do and is absolutely essential to cultivate curiosity and open-mindedness, as well as a genuine respect for your colleagues’ expertise. Lastly, mingle, mingle, mingle, not virtually but the old-fashioned way.
What's next on the research horizon for you?
Having recently started the first of my 4-year part-time PhD, I naturally look forward to translating my data from life-history narratives and focus groups into recommendations for mental health practices and policies. Whichever way my research continues to evolve, it will undoubtedly remain multidisciplinary and focused on vulnerable and marginalised populations, with a thread of epistemic justice running through it.
If you could make one change in the world today, what would it be?
In light of recent events, as an Iranian, my answer has to be political. Recently, the 23-year-old Mohsen Shekari was hanged for taking part in “Mahsa Amini protests” against the political oppression and injustice in Iran, with warnings of more executions to follow. The word trauma sounds utterly feeble in conveying the terror and agony that Iranian protestors and their families must be feeling now. I wish I could undo their pain; I wish I could protect them, but while this seems impossible, the creation of a democratic Iranian government that respects human rights is certainly possible. So if I could change one thing today, I would bring together all leading Iranian voices across political, religious, ethnic and class divisions to reckon, reconcile and create a wise and compassionate government by Iranian people, for Iranian people, one that allows this old civilisation to contribute to a better world, for everyone’s benefit.