Legacies of war: Syrian narratives of conflict and visions of peace

This article is interested in the formation of war legacies and how they interact with social identities. It suggests a bottom-up approach towards examining the societal processes in which individuals create a legacy of war. It posits that through their narratives of conflict, by remembering what ha...

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Main Author: Bachleitner, K
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publications 2021
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author Bachleitner, K
author_facet Bachleitner, K
author_sort Bachleitner, K
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description This article is interested in the formation of war legacies and how they interact with social identities. It suggests a bottom-up approach towards examining the societal processes in which individuals create a legacy of war. It posits that through their narratives of conflict, by remembering what happened to them as a group, they mould the meaning and boundaries of how the group will be membered post-conflict. The validity of the theorised link between war memory and group membership is then tested in the case of Syria. In 200 interviews, Syrians provided their narratives of the conflict and their vision of a future Syrian state and society. The findings show that most respondents’ narratives follow a civic rationale, forming a society around civil rights and political ideas rather than around ethnic/sectarian divides. With this, the article contributes a new route for international relations scholars to understand the formation of war legacies through individuals’ narratives of conflict and explains their effects on ties of group belonging while also offering a glimpse into the Syrian ‘we’ amid the ongoing war in Syria.
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spelling oxford-uuid:5cd7706d-4044-46c0-96a9-90ee61511e7d2022-07-04T09:03:01ZLegacies of war: Syrian narratives of conflict and visions of peaceJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:5cd7706d-4044-46c0-96a9-90ee61511e7dEnglishSymplectic ElementsSAGE Publications2021Bachleitner, KThis article is interested in the formation of war legacies and how they interact with social identities. It suggests a bottom-up approach towards examining the societal processes in which individuals create a legacy of war. It posits that through their narratives of conflict, by remembering what happened to them as a group, they mould the meaning and boundaries of how the group will be membered post-conflict. The validity of the theorised link between war memory and group membership is then tested in the case of Syria. In 200 interviews, Syrians provided their narratives of the conflict and their vision of a future Syrian state and society. The findings show that most respondents’ narratives follow a civic rationale, forming a society around civil rights and political ideas rather than around ethnic/sectarian divides. With this, the article contributes a new route for international relations scholars to understand the formation of war legacies through individuals’ narratives of conflict and explains their effects on ties of group belonging while also offering a glimpse into the Syrian ‘we’ amid the ongoing war in Syria.
spellingShingle Bachleitner, K
Legacies of war: Syrian narratives of conflict and visions of peace
title Legacies of war: Syrian narratives of conflict and visions of peace
title_full Legacies of war: Syrian narratives of conflict and visions of peace
title_fullStr Legacies of war: Syrian narratives of conflict and visions of peace
title_full_unstemmed Legacies of war: Syrian narratives of conflict and visions of peace
title_short Legacies of war: Syrian narratives of conflict and visions of peace
title_sort legacies of war syrian narratives of conflict and visions of peace
work_keys_str_mv AT bachleitnerk legaciesofwarsyriannarrativesofconflictandvisionsofpeace