University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2019-01-03 On the Lived Experience of the Syrian Diaspora in Canada Alatrash, Ghada Alatrash, G. (2019). On the Lived Experience of the Syrian Diaspora in Canada (Unpublished doctoral thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/109417 doctoral thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY On the Lived Experience of the Syrian Diaspora in Canada by Ghada Alatrash A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH CALGARY, ALBERTA JANUARY, 2019 © Ghada Alatrash 2019 Abstract The Syrian Diaspora today is a complex topic that speaks to issues of dislocation, displacement, loss, exile, identity, resilience and a desire for belonging. My research sought to better understand these issues and the lived experience and human condition of the Syrian Diaspora. In my research, I thought through this main question: How do Syrian newcomers come to make sense of what it means to have lost a home and a homeland as it relates to the Syrian Diasporic experience? I broached the Syrian diasporic subject by thinking through an anti-Orientalist, anti- colonial framework, and I engaged autoethnography as a research methodology and as a method as I reflexively thought through and wrote from my own personal experience as a Syrian immigrant so that I could better understand the Syrian refugee’s human experience. I held three open-ended, unstructured, interactive interviews in which I engaged my participants’ voices and stories in co-constructing knowledge on my research topic. My research participants were three Syrian refugee families in Calgary, and the interviews were held with the adults in the family. I sought a heterogeneous representation in my participants by seeking diversity in religion/ethnicity, in educational and socio-economic backgrounds, in political affiliations, as well as in their routes of immigration. I employed the notion of a “cultural verstehen of others,” or an empathetic understanding of others, and I reflected on how it can act as an important tool in a process of “cross-cultural pollination” (Chang, 2008, pp. 27-29) between Syrian newcomers and Canadian hosts. As I autoethnographically analyzed, presented, and interpreted the stories as told by the peoples of the Syrian Diaspora, I identified the following themes: “On the meanings and feelings of the lived experience of the Syrian Diasporic realities,” “On issues of language,” and “On creating new possibilities: Activating and actualizing the third space.” My findings spoke to the meaning of homeland, the meaning and feeling of being refugee, forced ii displacement, cultural identity, negotiating differences, resilience, language, cultural intersections and third spaces, and activating and actualizing the third space. iii Preface “‘Syria has become the great tragedy of this century - a disgraceful humanitarian calamity with suffering and displacement unparalleled in recent history,’ said Antonio Guterres, head of the UN High Commission for Refugees,” (Watt, Blair, & Sherlock, 2013). In October of 2015 during Canada’s Federal Election campaigns, the Government of Canada “committed to resettling 25,000 Syrian refugees by February 29, 2016.” As of August, 31, 2018, a total of 58,600 Syrian refugees have arrived in Canada to date (Government of Canada, 2018). The Syrian Diaspora today is a complex topic that speaks to issues of dislocation, displacement, loss, exile, identity and a desire for belonging. The aim of this study was to better understand these issues as well as the lived experience and human condition of the Syrian Diaspora who have become, within the past two years, part of our Canadian citizenry, local communities, and members of our schools and workforce. As I thought through these complex realities, my study was driven by the following research questions: • How do Syrian newcomers come to make sense of what it means to have lost a home and a homeland as it relates to the Syrian Diasporic experience? § What stories can Syrian newcomers share with us about their experiences in Syria since the eruption of the war and after their arrival to their newfound city of Calgary? § What do Syrian newcomers believe are ways in which Canadians (educators, employers, community organizations, policymakers) can help as they try to make meaning of family and home in their new homeland, and as they negotiate and remediate their identities? iv As I tried to understand these complex questions, I broached the Syrian diasporic subject by thinking through an anti-Orientalist, anti-colonial framework to disrupt a narrative that has historically contextualized the Arab/Middle Eastern subject through a fixed colonial lens. I aimed to contextualize my research topic within historical and political discourses, particularly within the context of Western ideologies. Here, I considered these questions: § What pre-existing knowledge do we hold on the Arab/Middle Eastern subjects, and what are its limitations; and could a shift in our knowledge allow for new possibilities of knowing to emerge? § How have colonial Orientalist epistemological impositions come to shape our ontological views on this subject, and how do narratives written by peoples of the Diasporas come to create new possibilities on knowing the Syrian Diasporic subject? I drew from the theoretical works of Palestinian Edward Said to help make meaning of the complex and layered topics of displacement and exile. I found that Said’s writing brings us to question the hegemonic dominant colonial narratives and offers a critical lens to examine that which has been prolifically presented and disseminated in Western discourse as knowledge on the Middle Eastern/Arab subject. I deeply believe that the relationships between Arabs and the West is governed by questions concerning power and is weaved in a very complex web of hegemonic, colonial, political, imperialistic frameworks. Also, as I tried to make sense of European colonial formations of history and knowledge and of their contradictions, I relied on the works of Frantz Fanon in an attempt to “find something different” (Fanon, 1963, p. 311) and to offer alternate ways of knowing and understanding the human condition. In my attempt to counter the dominant colonial narratives, I looked for ways to evoke the voices of the “Other” v and to invite a “renarrativization” (Xie, 1999) of colonial discourses by way of “restorying . [and] reshaping narrative to better reflect a diversity of perspectives” (Thomas & Stornaiuolo, 2016, p. 313). I believe that we can come to unmute what has been silenced or dismissed in our discourses by engaging, as in Said’s (1979) words, a “cultural position” of the Otherized subject. Also in this dissertation, I presented my review of Syrian literature that speaks to Syrian identity as well as some of the Palestinian works that have informed my knowledge on the experience of displacement and exile. One of the limitations that I faced in my attempt to write about the Syrian Diasporic experience since the war is the scarcity of literature written by Syrians; the Syrian Diaspora affected by the war is a topic that is only a few years old and is in its infancy stages where Syrian voices have been, for the most part, contextualized in news articles, opinion columns, video clips, or by way of social media. To provide context, the first protests took place in Syria on March 15, 2011; November 4, 2015, marks the first arrival date of Syrians affected by the war to Canadian land (Citizenship and Immigration Canada, 2017). In my literature review, I first situated and contextualized the Syrian Diaspora within a Canadian landscape and brought to the discussion some of the Western sentiments on this topic by reading through articles, government documents and media conversations that have come to constitute our knowledge on the topic. I also evoked the celebratory moments as well as the tensions and struggles that reside within our Canadian communities, addressed the surfacing implications, and critically thought through how these moments come to speak to and construct the experience of the Syrian Diaspora in Canada today. Second, I introduced Syrian identities through looking at what was written before the Syrian war erupted in 2011 where, historically, Syrians have always written and spoken about exile in their literature, long before this destructive war began in March of 2011. As mentioned earlier, the Syrian Diasporic experience vi since the recent Syrian war remains in its early stages where there exists a gap that is yet to be filled by post-war Syrian writers. To deliver a sense of Syrian identities and their experience to my readers, I brought into my discussion the voices of pre-Syrian-war writers and poets including Nizar Kabbani, Muhammad al-Maghut, Zakaria Tamer, Mamduh Adwan, Adonis and Nasib Arida. Lastly, to capture a post-war written sentiment, I evoked the voice of Syrian Novelist Najat Abdul Samad as she writes her narratives from within the national borders of a war-torn Syrian where she currently resides today. Moreover, in my attempt to better understand the lived experience of the displaced Syrian people, I also resorted to Palestinian literature written by and on exiles and refugees. Within the context of recent Arab history, the Palestinian struggle has become a poignant representation of what it means to have lost a homeland. Palestinian writers have conceptualized the meaning of displacement in their narratives for over half a century, and therefore the literature on the topic is abundant on the topic.