This paper explores radicalization and deradicalization by considering the experiences of six young Tunisian people who had become Salafist Muslims. Their responses to narrative interviews and repertory grid technique are considered from a personal construct perspective, revealing processes of construing and reconstruing, as well as relevant aspects of the structure and content of their construct systems. In two cases, their journeys involved not only radicalization but self-deradicalization, and their experiences are drawn upon to consider implications for deradicalization.

This article gives an example of self-deradicalisation from Tunisia. It addresses the potential of radicalized individuals to de-radicalize themselves from within the Salafi doctrine with no external interventions, while the state's religious rehabilitation approaches to tackling radicalism not only fail but are counter-productive. Deradicalisation could, of course, involve a more comprehensive rejection of Salafi ideology. This article suggests that an effective type of deradicalisation is, more likely to make the desired change possible, is one in which there is a gradual modification of some attitudes and behaviours without abandoning the whole underpinning Salafi ideology. Referring to the personal narratives of 28 individual Tunisian Salafis, the article identifies phases of radicalization and deradicalisation as the individual voluntarily moves from embracing radical ideology to a more critical understanding and practice reflecting on personal and interpersonal experiences of being radicalized. The research shows that the process of self-deradicalisation is reflective of Salafi youth experience of engagement with radicalism and is more likely to happen in societies that allow political expression and individual freedom that invoke individuals' critical thinking.

This article explores the interconnection between intersectionality and gender performativity.It aims to understand how the interplay between multiple identities based on gender, nationality, ethnicity, religion and sexuality contributes to shaping different forms of gender performativity within the context of Syrians' displacement in Turkey. The article presents an analysis of interview data collected from 40 Syrian refugee women living in three southeast Turkish border cities: Gaziantep, Mardin and Sanliurfa. The research used the method of personal narrative interviewing to explore changing gender practices in the context of displacement. It is argued that the emerging gender performativity of Syrian refugee women is shaped by the intersecting of their multiple identities; the interconnection between the past and the present experiences of these identities; and the different effects of identity practices over time and place on women's lived experience and social relations.

This article analyzes the relationship between men’s physical disability and the trajectories of negotiating masculinities in the context of Syrian refugee displacement in Jordan and Turkey. The article draws its analysis from the personal narratives of five displaced Syrian refugee men who sustained injuries during the war in Syria. It explores how Syrian refugee men with disabilities remake their masculine bodies and selves to create a new version of masculinity that responds to the changes in their socioeconomic circumstances and bodies. The article argues that the disabled Syrian refugee men went through multiple and contradictory masculine trajectories that intersect with multiple identities and different types of disability. Disabled Syrian refugee men’s emergent masculine embodiments created a version of masculinity that, although it adhered to the patriarchal family values of connectivity and intimacy, does not in its practice legitimate domination within the family and in the Syrian refugee community.

Since the beginning of the Syrian crisis in 2011, the total number of Syrian refugees who have fled to Jordan and registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was 655,624 as of January 2, 2018. Most Syrian refugee families in Jordan have lost all sources of livelihood and face increasing vulnerability. The majority have become reliant on cash and food assistance from international humanitarian organizations. The continuing household vulnerability and the insufficient support provided by the international humanitarian community have forced many refugee families to accept humiliating and “negative” coping mechanisms. Some of the negative coping strategies are based on Syrian refugees’ patriarchal culture, such as early marriage for girls and child labor. Others go beyond the moral virtues of patriarchal culture, such as women’s involvement in “survival sex” (e.g., exchanging protection or housing for sexual favors) and socially and culturally unacceptable jobs outside the home. Literature on gender-differentiated coping mechanisms undertaken by Syrian refugees provides evidence of the reconfiguration of gender, in which women act as the primary family providers through reliance on humanitarian assistance, while the men work in casual menial jobs, or are jobless and helpless.