Suchergebnisse

Abstract'Sectarianism' has been frequently used by politicians, activists, journalists and even some academics to explain causes and dynamics of the Syrian uprising and the subsequent civil war. However, this state of affairs contrasts sharply with the kinds of symbols and rhetoric used by the predominantly peaceful protesters who took to the streets in Syria in 2011. Drawing on interpretivist approach and thick‐description, this article traces how local and supralocal activists' reactions to the regime's violence and its master narrative culminated in the activation and politicisation of the category of 'sect' as a residual sociality. I argue that the increasing visibility of sectarian frameworks and the demobilisation of non‐sectarian actors were parts of boundary‐making strategies pursued by local and supralocal actors who capitalised on regime violence and regional sectarian framing and sought to have a monopoly over the symbolic representation of the uprising. The effectiveness of the sectarianisation process was contingent on the escalation of violence, the militarisation and internationalisation of the uprising, and the transnationalisation of sectarian networks. Taking Syria as a case study, this article demonstrates how conflicts, or violence, become 'ethnic' or 'sectarian‐coded' and how macro social phenomenon influences microlevel behaviour, perspectives and strategies of boundary making.

AbstractBefore the Syrian uprising (2011) and the subsequent war, Syria's literacy rates were among the highest in the Middle East and North Africa region. However, after a decade‐long humanitarian crisis and devastating war, all aspects of life, including education, have been fundamentally transformed. Building on ethnographic fieldwork (2014–2019) that includes 76 interviews with Syrian refugees and asylum seekers in the United States and six remote interviews with displaced families inside Syria, this contribution examines the impact of the Syrian conflict on education by showing the challenges that contribute to the alienation of displaced Syrian children and youth inside Syria as well as in the United States. Inside Syria, I discuss the institutionalization of violence and the construction of internal "othering" through the implementation of different and competing educational curriculums that invest in identity politics. Outside Syria, I examine how educational gaps affected asylum seekers and refugees in the United States. I show the ways in which the lack of systematic and sustainable support to address linguistic, cultural, and financial challenges that displaced Syrians face sustained this gap. I conclude by proposing policy recommendations that address these challenges which, I argue are key determinants to any future efforts of peacebuilding and reconciliation in Syria.

This dissertation provides empirically grounded analysis that elucidates meaning-making processes among Syrians who are caught between past experiences of brutal state violence (in Syria) and present experiences of bureaucratic and judicial violence (in the United States). It seeks to bridge the gaps between macro and micro levels of analysis in political science and it is driven by ethnographic observations and the puzzles and questions I have encountered at the grassroots level following the 2011 Syrian uprising. I follow interpretive ethnographic methodology and employ three main methods: 1) 76 interviews with exiled Syrians, immigration attorneys, and social workers at refugee resettlement agencies 2) political ethnography by combining participant observation with auto-ethnography; and 3) critical discourse analysis and textual analysis of media and immigration documents. The dissertation addresses the following main questions: How did the Syrian uprising and the subsequent chronic conflict and displacement reshape the social and political dynamics between Syrians? What was the role of regional and international actors, including Syrians in diaspora, in mediating these dynamics? How do participants' past experiences and memories continue to affect their lived experiences as asylum seekers and refugees in the present? And how do asylum officers in the United States re-frame asylum seekers' narrated stories to include racialized others through exclusion? To answer these questions, I focus on the context of post-2011 Syria and demonstrate that the contradictions and the long-term effects of the Syrian uprising and the subsequent conflict and displacement continue to reshape the social and political dynamics between Syrians and their subjectivities in exile as well as inside their shattered country. I show that analyzing the dynamics of the Syrian uprising and the conjuncture of the Arab Spring, especially during the formative years of 2011-2013, is a multidimensional task that is indispensable to understanding the contentious and ongoing processes of group-making and identity-(re)formation in exile. I also demonstrate how legalized, yet invisible forms of institutional violence have transformed the process of seeking asylum in the United States into what I call, a project of liminalization, which is embedded in a logic of differentiation and racialization.

Over the past decade, there have been increasing numbers of displaced scholars from the Middle East and Africa who have come under sustained pressures and threats from their governments; only a few of them have been able to relocate to European and North American academia through scholarships and grants.1 Even these temporary solutions for displaced scholars rarely result in sustainable institutional solidarity in the form of permanent teaching or professorial positions. The lack of institutional support, coupled with discriminatory and racialized immigration policies, pushes these few fortunate scholars to either accept exploitative conditions perpetuated by the neoliberal economy or leave academia altogether to support their families. These challenges, along with draconian economic sanctions and restrictions imposed by the US Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on citizens of countries such as Syria, Sudan, Iran, and Cuba are only a snapshot of what displaced scholars endure on a daily basis while trying to do research, care for their families, and compete with scholars with privileged citizenship status for shrinking opportunities in the academic job market.