A Call from Raqqa: Reconfiguring Future imaginarles in Forced Displacement

This article discusses how the ongoing conflict in Syria and the Rojava Revolution gave way to newly imagined futures and political possibilities for displaced Kurdish Syrians. It examines the Syrian war and the broader Middle Eastern context as a system of unpredictable escalations (Hojer et al. 20...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inConflict and society Vol. 9; pp. 99 - 114
Main Author Askari, Lana
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Berghahn Books, Inc 01.01.2023
Subjects
Graeber, David
Refugees, Kurdish
Revolutions
Middle East
United Kingdom
Iraq
Syria
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Summary:This article discusses how the ongoing conflict in Syria and the Rojava Revolution gave way to newly imagined futures and political possibilities for displaced Kurdish Syrians. It examines the Syrian war and the broader Middle Eastern context as a system of unpredictable escalations (Hojer et al. 2018) and the liberation of Kobani as a "critical" and "generative" moment (Das 1995; Kapferer 2015) in the Kurdish imaginary. Using ethnographic (audiovisual) material, I point to how people in forced displacement must constantly navigate uncertainty and reconfigure and consolidate their unknown future paths. I argue that my interlocutor Mihemed stabilized these uncertainties through his capacity to hold multiple future possibilities open simultaneously in order to keep every outcome viable.
ISSN:2164-4543
2164-4551
DOI:10.3167/arcs.2023.090107