Testimonies of Syrian Academics Displaced Post 2011: Time, place and the agentic self

This article explores the experiences of protracted displacement in a group of 19 displaced Syrian academics now living in Turkey who are often referred to as the precariat that is, a group or collective of people who are living in conditions of high unpredictability, insecurity and uncertainty. As part of a small-scale collaborative professional enquiry , semi-structured interviews with these academics were conducted to understand the social, affective and professional experiences, needs and concerns of the academics during and after their forced displacement. The key concepts of precarity and crises of selfhood, alongside memory and testimony, inform the analysis. This article seeks to provide an account of this collective experience and its complex character and concludes with observations on how one might understand the constraints on professional agency and how might one support displaced academics in such contexts. Solidarity in exile and the development of political friendships are argued for as a principle to inform all work.CARA and Soros Foundatio

Cultural trauma and the politics of access to higher education in Syria

This paper examines the relationship between the politics of Higher Education access pertaining to longstanding practices of patrimonial authoritarian politics and the narration of collective trauma. Building on an empirical study of Syrian HE during war, we suggest that a narrative disjuncture within HEIs has a damaging impact not only upon the educational process, HE reconstruction and reform, but also upon the possibility of social reconciliation. This is especially true when access to education and post-graduation opportunities are directly linked to patrimonial favouritism; widespread social inequalities in access and retention; a violent turn in the purging of oppositional academics; a severely exacerbated brain drain linked to political views; and significantly sparser employment opportunities. Building on the study findings, we show how these challenges are linked to ethico-political positioning vis-à-vis the mass movement of 2011 and related cultural trauma narratives. In closing, we suggest that understanding the relationship between HE access and cultural trauma can inform decision-making on HE reconstruction and future reform. © 2020, © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

‘Trauma work’ as hindrance to political praxis during democratisation movements

AbstractThis paper examines the impact of a shift in focus from political praxis to trauma work in the context of a failed democratisation movement. It investigates the various phenomena which emerge when intellectuals, under the traumatic impact of violence and atrocities, place trauma narration at the core of their interventions. Drawing on document analysis, participant observation and semi-structured interviews with twenty nine exiled Syrian intellectuals in Paris and Berlin who had participated in the revolutionary movement of 2011, the paper suggests that an inversion of the normative power structures pertaining to how intellectuals relate to their publics occurs when they adopt, under conditions of extreme violence and trauma, what we call a radically embedded positionality vis-à-vis ‘the people’. This results in the dismantling of previous figurations of the ‘militant intellectual’ along with praxis-focused notions of the ‘responsibility of intellectuals’, ultimately undermining their ideational influence upon domestic publics and weakening their political impact and critical role within a revolutionary movement.</jats:p

Conflict, insecurity and the political economies of higher education: The case of Syria post-2011

Purpose This paper stems from a 12-month collaborative enquiry between a group of Syrian academics in exile in Turkey and academics from the University of Cambridge into the state of Syrian Higher Education after the onset of the conflict in 2011. The purpose of this paper is to draw on 19 open-ended interviews with exiled Syrian academics; two focus groups; mapping and timeline exercises; and 117 interviews collected remotely by collaborating Syrian academics with former colleagues and students who were still living inside Syria at the time of data collection. The findings of the research suggest that Syrian HE after 2011 was fragmented across regions; in some cases non-existent, and in others deemed to be in a state of reform in order to meet student needs. Key issues that emerged from this work are human rights’ abuses directed against academics and students including the detainment, purging and kidnapping of academics, an increased militarisation of university life and a substantive loss of academic and human capital. Design/methodology/approach The overall design involved two workshops held in Turkey (in June and July, 2017) at which the Cambridge team explained the stages of undertaking qualitative research and planned the collaborative enquiry with Syrian co-researchers. The first workshop addressed the nature of qualitative research and explored the proposed methods of interviewing, using timelines and mapping. The instruments for interviewing were constructed in groups together and mapping was undertaken with the 21 Syrian academics in exile who attended the workshop. Syrian academics also built their own research plans as a way of expanding the consultation dimension of this project inside Syria, engaged in survey and interview protocol planning and discussed ways to access needed documentation which could be drawn upon to enrich the project. The Syrian co-researchers interviewed remotely HE staff and students who had remained in, or recently left, Syria; the key criterion for group or participant selection was that they had recent and relevant experience of Syrian HE. The second workshop focused on data analysis and writing up. There was also wide consultation with participants inside and outside Syria. As part of the research, the Cambridge team conducted open-ended interviews with 19 Syrian academics and students living in exile in Turkey. This involved interviewing Syrian scholars about their experiences of HE, policy changes over time and their experiences of displacement. The researchers developed this protocol prior to the capacity-building workshops based on previous research experience on academic and student displacement, alongside extensive preparation on the conditions of Syrian HE, conflict and displacement. In addition to interviewing, a pivotal element of methodological rigour was that the authors sought to member check what participants were learning through mapping and timeline exercises and extensive note-taking throughout both workshops. The major issues that the authors confronted were ethical concerns around confidentiality, the need to ensure rigourously the protection of all participants’ anonymity and to be extremely mindful of the political sensitivity of issues when interviewing participants who may not feel able to fully trust “outsider” researchers. Issues of social trust have been reported in the literature as one of the most significant drawbacks in conducting research in “conflict environments” (see Cohen and Arieli, 2011) where academics and students have been working and/or studying in autocratic regimes or were operating within political contexts where being open or critical of any form of institutional life such as university work or the nation could cost them their jobs or their lives. Findings The accounts of Syrian academics and students emerging from this work point to some of the state-building expressions of HE manifested in the shaping of professional and personal experiences, the condition and status of HE, its spatial arrangements and their associated power formations, and resulting in feelings of intense personal and professional insecurity among Syrian scholars and students since 2011. While acknowledging that the Syrian situation is deemed one of the worst humanitarian crises in the region in recent decades, these accounts resonate, if in different ways, with other studies of academics and students who have experienced highly centralised and autocratic states and tightly regulated HE governance regimes (Barakat and Milton, 2015; Mazawi, 2011). Originality/value Currently, there is virtually no research on the status and conditions of higher education in Syria as a consequence of the war, which commenced in 2011. This work presents a first-person perspective from Syrian academics and students on the state of HE since the onset of the conflict. The major contribution of this work is the identification of key factors shaping conflict and division in HE, alongside the political economies of HE destruction which are unique to the Syrian war and longstanding forms of authoritarian state governance.Funded by Council For At Risk Academics (CARA

Assessment and treatment of large tumor from the jaws in a 55-Syrian male patient: A case report

Large bone tumors can form in the upper and lower jaws of the mouth, leading to dental and jaw lesions. These tumors pose a significant challenge in performing dental prosthetics and restorative procedures in the affected jaws. This case report highlights a successful surgical intervention for a fifty-five-year-old Syrian man who presented with multiple bone tumors in the jaw bones. The surgery, performed at the dental clinic of the International University of Science and Technology, aimed to remove the tumors, allowing for future dental restorations. The surgical procedure was successful, and the tumorous lesions were examined and removed from both the upper and lower jaws. The jaws were then prepared for complete dental restorations. This case emphasizes the importance of timely intervention and surgical management for bone tumors in the jaws to restore oral function and improve quality of life