Abstract
Taking an ethnographic point of departure in the stories of three Syrian middle-class men in Amman, Jordan, in this article, I zoom in on the role of care in the everyday of exile, as I explore the young men’s attempts to be “responsible” young men despite challenging circumstances. Guided by Ahmed’s (2006) notion of lifelines, defined as those which direct us and allow us to find our way (ibid.: 12–14), I demonstrate how gendered norms and notions became objects of reflection and experimentation in exile, both enabling and forcing the young men I worked with to think through other ways of leading life as a man. Finding further inspiration in Naguib’s (2015) and Ghannam’s (2013) works on masculinity and care in the Middle East, I consider care as central to the process of negotiating a masculine identity in general as well as to the reconfiguration of a meaningful masculine position in exile specifically.
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Notes
Apart from being geographically near, Jordan shares many similarities with Syria. The majority of the young people I came to know had all crossed the border between Syria and Jordan on multiple occasions; they had visited Amman for weekend trips or gone to visit relatives who lived in the area. Altogether, such personal, cultural and linguistic ties made Jordan a good place to seek refuge for the time being.
Despite the fact that Syrian university students constitute an important group with regard to the future of Syria, as pointed out by Keith Watenpaugh and colleagues (Watenpaugh et al., 2013), this group of displaced Syrians is a generally unacknowledged component of a larger humanitarian disaster (ibid.: 5). Moreover, single Syrian men has until recently been particularly overlooked by humanitarian aid agencies due to, among other things, a certain notion of the figure of the refuge (Turner, 2018). Today, “the refugee” is imagined as vulnerable and destitute and commonly associated with “women and children” (see Johnson, 2011). Importantly, such gendered understanding of “the refugee” frames the humanitarian schema in ways which render questionable Syrians men’s position within the category of people whom humanitarians are there to save (Turner 2018: 61). Thus, well-educated, single men based in urban Amman do not “fit” within existing humanitarian categories and are, at best, overlooked and assumed capable of navigating the everyday of exile unaided. At worst however, they are perceived as constituting a threat to more vulnerable displaced groups such as young women as well as to national security in Jordan. Altogether, such structural conditions of being in exile affected and shaped how the young men I worked with navigated in the everyday of exile as well as how they perceived their chances of gaining a foothold in Amman.
25 Jordanian Dinars (JOD) equals approximately 35 US Dollars.
Importantly, the young Syrian men I worked with in Amman were not alone with their frustration. It is well-documented how, among other things, economic decline, unemployment and political unrest have caused what have been referred to as a “marriage crisis” (see for example Schielke, 2015). Consequently, across the Middle East young single men and women face a great deal of tensions and uncertainty, as they are highly concerned about the future and about their place within a family and a community (see Bowen et al., 2014).
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Mortensen, E.L. Becoming responsible in exile: reimagining manhood among Syrian men in Amman. Cont Islam 15, 201–213 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11562-021-00471-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11562-021-00471-5