This chapter gives an overview of the main issues tackled in the book. First, it describes in detail why the theoretical project is different from and complementary to both ‘primordialist’ and ’elite mobilisation’ perspectives of violent political conflicts. The model built around the key notions of social representations and social practices introduces a bottom-up component into constructivist perspectives on ‘ethnic identity’ and political violence. In this view, political violence (re-)creates and (re-)shapes ‘ethnic identity’ (and separation) and does not simply spontaneously flow out of pre-existing communal conflict Then, we defend the idea that to share some instruments and a similar societal approach of psychology within an interdisciplinary and international network of social scientists is fruitful, as it enables an empirical and theoretical investigation of complex social practices and representations and an innovative articulation between the individual and the social in relation to victimisation. The second section of this introduction presents the TRACES survey data and fieldwork methodology. In particular, the life calendar methodology and some descriptive findings regarding victimisation on the whole territory of former Yugoslavia since 1990 are presented. In the third and final section, a short summary of each chapter is given.