scholarly journals The Journey to Death: Fictionalizing the Syrian Refugee Crisis in Khaled Hosseini’s Sea Prayer

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (5) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Abdul Samad Kadavan
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
War Trauma ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
Syrian Refugee ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Memory And Trauma ◽  
Post War ◽  
Syrian Refugee Crisis

This paper explores the fictional representation of the Syrian refugee crisis in Khaled Hosseini's novel Sea Prayer (2018). The novel is considered a refugee narrative, examining the question of home, displacement, and the fateful journeys of the Syrian refugees. The novel depicts the heart-wrenching experiences of the refugee community in war-torn Syrian city Homs before and after the outbreak of the civil war in the country. Evoking the tragic death of Alan Kurdi, Hosseini vividly illustrates the various dimensions of the Syrian refugee crisis, including the outbreak of the civil war in Syria and the eventual birth of refugees, their homelessness/statelessness, perilous journey to escape the persecution, xenophobic attitudes towards them, and post-war trauma. This paper draws on postcolonial refugee narratives, concept of journeys of non-arrival, memory, and trauma studies to elucidate its argument. The contention here is that the current crisis in Syria is also accounted for by analyzing the fictional refugee narratives. The unspeakable trauma is communicated through fiction, and Hosseini’s novel depicts the dangers engulfed and the hope entrusted in the refugees’ journeys.

scholarly journals The Syrian Refugee Crisis: A Short Orientation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vappu Tyyskä ◽  
Jenna Blower ◽  
Samantha DeBoer ◽  
Shunya Kawai ◽  
Ashley Walcott
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
North America ◽  
Recent History ◽  
Refugee Resettlement ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Humanitarian Crisis ◽  
Syrian Crisis ◽  
Syrian Refugee ◽  
History Of ◽  
Syrian Refugee Crisis

Introduction: Following decades of internal religious, political, and economic turmoil and international actions, a civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, sending unprecedented numbers of refugees to the surrounding countries, to Europe, and gradually to North America. While the international and Canadian communities are struggling to address this humanitarian crisis, background knowledge about the unfolding situation is needed. This report will provide: (1) a summary of the recent history of the Syrian crisis, starting in the 1970s; (2) an orientation to the Syrian refugee flows; and (3) an outline of the Canadian and international refugee resettlement efforts.

Resilience and the Rise of Speculative Humanitarianism: Thinking Difference through the Syrian Refugee Crisis

2021 ◽  
pp. 030582982110312
Author(s):  
Pol Bargués ◽  
Jessica Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Lessons Learned ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Speculative Realism ◽  
Syrian Refugee ◽  
Radical Uncertainty ◽  
Syrian Refugee Crisis ◽  
International Interventions

This article explores the nature of resilience-informed international interventions today by thinking about ‘difference’. Up to the 1990s, international interventions were often characterised by a patronising tone in which backward others needed help to develop. Some 20 years later, key lessons learned were that others were so fundamentally different that efforts to assist them invariably failed. This article argues that contemporary approaches seeking to foster resilience are simultaneously propelled by both approaches. They are thus underpinned by two conflicting understandings of difference: the other that is in need and the other that cannot be attended. Even more, we contend that this contradiction is put to productive use in resilience-building: protracted crises today demand practitioners to ‘be there’, engaged permanently, to speculate, experiment, and affirm radical uncertainty. In order to analyse the novel features of resilience, we draw on Graham Harman’s speculative realism and look at policy programming of the Syrian refugee crisis.

Making a Home for Refugees: Jürgen Moltmann’s Trinitarian Theology and Hospitality

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-54
Author(s):  
Caroline Redick
Keyword(s):  
Trinitarian Theology ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
Christian Ethic ◽  
Syrian Refugee ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
Divine Identity ◽  
Syrian Refugee Crisis ◽  
The Trinity

AbstractThis article seeks to offer a theological response for the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis (2011–19) by examining the doctrine of the Trinity in light of the contemporary landscape of displacement. In order to explore divine identity in relation to displacement and hospitality, the theology of Jürgen Moltmann will be utilized in order to interpret the current crisis through the lens of Trinitarian salvation. Moltmann’s understanding of Trinitarian persons as spaces will be explored to highlight the role of risk in love and to illustrate how salvific enfolding even embraces the possibility of harm. Finally, building from his theology, the article will argue that this understanding of Trinitarian salvation impacts a Christian ethic of hospitality during the refugee crisis.

scholarly journals Infrastructures of Suffering: Trauma, Sumud and the Politics of Violence and Aid in Lebanon

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Lamia Mounir Moghnieh
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
War Trauma ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Syrian Refugee ◽  
Postwar Reconstruction ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
Syrian Refugee Crisis ◽  
Health Experts

This article traces the infrastructures of suffering under the governance of humanitarian psychiatry to explore how material conditions of war and aid have shaped the politics of trauma and sumud[steadfastness] in Lebanon. Based on 29 months of ethnographic fieldwork undertaken from 2011 to 2013, I look at the expert, economic, and techno-political assemblages of trauma and sumudduring the July War in 2006 and the Syrian refugee crisis in 2011. Mental health experts faced unexpected difficulties in diagnosing war trauma during the July War. This led political actors to claim that these difficulties reflected a general absence of suffering from war and a sign of Lebanese resilience, drawing on economies of sumudin postwar reconstruction. The Syrian refugee crisis however radically transformed the politics of suffering in Lebanon. A new political economy of trauma emerged where the Lebanese now competed with other aid communities to have their past suffering recognised as traumatic. Comparing the relations between violence, aid, and suffering in both instances serves to contextualise and historicise suffering beyond a particular discourse or event. It also serves to highlight the contingencies of suffering rather than its internal and psychic elements.

scholarly journals The Syrian Refugee Crisis: A Short Orientation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vappu Tyyskä ◽  
Jenna Blower ◽  
Samantha DeBoer ◽  
Shunya Kawai ◽  
Ashley Walcott
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
North America ◽  
Recent History ◽  
Refugee Resettlement ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Humanitarian Crisis ◽  
Syrian Crisis ◽  
Syrian Refugee ◽  
History Of ◽  
Syrian Refugee Crisis

Introduction: Following decades of internal religious, political, and economic turmoil and international actions, a civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, sending unprecedented numbers of refugees to the surrounding countries, to Europe, and gradually to North America. While the international and Canadian communities are struggling to address this humanitarian crisis, background knowledge about the unfolding situation is needed. This report will provide: (1) a summary of the recent history of the Syrian crisis, starting in the 1970s; (2) an orientation to the Syrian refugee flows; and (3) an outline of the Canadian and international refugee resettlement efforts.

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