Dr. Elizabeth Coomes; Samuel Gracida, MA; Emma Maclean – “Global Displacement and Music Therapy:  Trauma, Cultural Connections and Social Transformation in Music Therapy”

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that the global population of forcibly displaced persons currently stands at 123.2 million at the end of 2024. Forced displacement occurs when people are compelled to leave their homeland for reasons including conflict, oppression, economic and natural crises. It brings with it a range of challenges for those who are displaced. Music and music therapy provide ways of working with those experiencing these complex and sometimes overwhelming experiences.  This presentation will explore aspects of such work, using themes of building authentic cultural connections with displaced persons through music therapy, recognizing trauma and its impact on those displaced and those working in this area and what social transformations may occur because of this work. We will also explore whether mechanisms of change identified in music therapy in contemporary literature could be an area of future research in this work.

Biographies

Music therapist, Dr. Elizabeth Coombes, who has short, wavy, brownish-blonde hair. She is wearing a blue sweater in front of a gray background.

Elizabeth Coombes is music therapy educator at University of South Wales in the UK. Her research focusses on displaced families with pre-school children, specifically exploring the benefits of groupwork in this context.

Music therapist, Samuel Gracida, who has brown hair and is wearing a black shirt with a geometrically-patterned stripe in blue, gold, red, pink, and purple

Samuel Gracida is a music therapy clinician, author, and entrepreneur with a global footprint. He has worked in various countries across multiple cultural contexts and is currently based in Germany at the University of Heidelberg.

Music therapist, Emma Maclean, who has straight, medium-length, blond hair and is wearing a tan, white, and gray sweater

Emma Maclean is a music therapy practitioner and educator at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, Scotland, as well as an arts psychotherapies lead in community mental health.