ABSTRACT
A traumatic experience, especially when inflicted by others during torture, is generally assumed to damage the victims to the extent that they actually lose touch with common sense reality. Despite the fact that they may experience an increased freedom of personal choice, many third world exiles are, however, left entirely on their own to substitute for close-knit and collectively anchored normative regulations as best they can. Social uprootedness is a recurrent theme – which is closely related to the world of religion – and which has gained renewed scientific interest as a consequence of contemporary sociopolitical upheavals and intercontinental migration. The central tenets of western modernisation, and its criticism, depend on the necessary preconditions of democracy, capitalism, and an individualistic social system. Depending on the perspective cultural variation includes both inter-group differences such as those related to ethnicity and religion, and intra- or subgroup differences such as gender, age and socioeconomic status.
