How are social relations and ethno-religious identifications of pre-war Syria remembered and narrated by Syrian refugees in exile? Crossing the abyss of war, and negotiated through the shifting times and sites of forced displacement, this article addresses Syrian refugee narratives as discursive practices that attempt to reclaim an irretrievably lost terrain. The metaphor of a ‘paradise lost’ is an unmistakable component of the Syrian refugees’ stories, illustrating multiple understandings of ‘paradise’ in which memories of the past gain a particularly idealized character. At the same time, however, and to some extent belying this metaphor, there are traces of tension-filled undercurrents that call for a plural reading of the past. Discussed within a theoretical framework of memory, metaphors and religious identifications, the empirical analysis highlights two narrative themes: (1) coexistence and diversity: narratives of intercultural and inter-religious relations and (2) living under authoritarian rule: narratives of fear and compliance. Leading up to the revolution and subsequent civil war, these narratives display the ambivalent ways in which Syrian refugees conceptualize the past.

Whereas much recent research has tried to understand the role of sectarianism in the Syrian conflict, few studies address the issue from a bottom-up viewpoint as seen from people’s everyday and lived experiences. This article seeks to access trajectories of sectarian identity formations through Syrian refugee narratives, articulated in stories that evolve around the revolution and the emerging civil war. It questions how the sectarian debate is experienced and reflected upon from refugees’ micro-narrative perspectives and the ways in which these experiences correspond to politicized frames operating on a macro-level. By taking the concept of ‘sectarianism’ as a theoretical vantage point, the study argues for a dynamic identity approach when attempting to understand complex processes of contested and contesting identities. Moreover, it suggests that by replacing the concept of sectarianism with ‘sectarianization’, we may provide a more nuanced understanding of processes in which religious identities are discursively constructed and mobilized in conflicts such as the Syrian one. The qualitative analysis of this study is based on in-depth narrative interviews with a multi-religious Syrian refugee population residing in Norway. Divided into four narrative clusters, their stories deal with hope, fear, victimization as well as hate and distrust. Through the extremities of revolution and war, each of these clusters reveal particular memories, moments and experiences that in various ways have informed and shaped issues of identity and perceptions of the ‘religious other’. Taken together, their stories expose a valuable juncture through which the complexities surrounding religion, identity and conflict can be further studied.

How and to what extent does religion play into the life-rupturing experiences that characterize forced migration? This article provides a novel look at how issues of religion and identity (re/de)constructions are entangled with the Syrian refugee crisis and mirrored in the diverse experiences relating to a sample of Syrian refugees now residing in Norway. The study aims to delve more deeply into the Syrian scene of war as a determinant backdrop to the Syrian refugee crisis, thereby tracing the intersection of religion in people’s experiences of conflict, displacement, and refugeehood. It argues for a lived dimension approach when analysing the variable ways in which empowering and disempowering aspects of religion cut into their migration trajectories. Additionally, it applies a theoretical lens derived from existential anthropology to explore how narrative negotiations veer between chaos, crisis, and disruption, on the one hand, and resilience, hope, and restitution, on the other. The study reveals an ambiguous empirical reality in which the nexus between religion and forced migration involves highly contradictory identification processes. Furthermore, it provides vivid polyvocal testimonies on how Syrians have navigated the liminal in-betweens of vulnerability and agency in their escape from Syria as well as during their journeys of displacement into refugeehood.

This chapter addresses the interconnection of religion and displacement in a conflict-induced Syrian refugee context. After more than a decade of bloodshed and undissolved war, an unprecedented displacement crisis has led Syrians to comprise one of the largest refugee populations in Europe and elsewhere. Little research has discerned the complex role that religion, identity, and belonging play in shaping migratory patterns and experiences among Syrian refugees. Not least have these dimensions been absent concerning the ways in which lived experiences of religion inform both real and imaginary forms of temporal and spatial displacement contexts. In order to adequately capture the multidimensional and (dis)empowering aspects of religion in Syrians’ migratory experiences, this chapter argues for applying a dynamic trajectory lens in which the parameters of time and space are both experientially and existentially acknowledged. The research shows how trajectories embrace pivotal experiences spanning flight, refugeehood, and exile as multiple and overlapping migratory paths and horizons. Furthermore, it explores trajectories as mirroring a hybrid assemblage of memory practices through which the symbolic language of metaphors is narratively conveyed. By focusing on the spatiotemporal metaphors of utopia, dystopia, and heterotopia, this research thus attempts to map the storied landscape of Syrian refugee trajectories; an ambiguous realm in which religion, identity, and belonging fluctuate between both backward-looking as well as future-oriented processes.

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