Conference Portal, Education, Peace, and Equity International Conference 2024 (EPE 2024)

Font Size: 
The Resilience Narratives and its Impact on the Future and Peacebuilding perceptions of the Young Syrian Refugees Recipients of the ‘Education in Emergencies’ Social-Emotional Learning Interventions.
Salahuddine Al Mugharbil

Last modified: 2024-09-16

Abstract


Resilience is considered a central protective mechanism in overcoming war and displacement trauma. Consequently, it is increasingly becoming a concept that the Education in Emergencies community try and promote through their social-emotional learning interventions in the conflict-affected areas including the ongoing Syrian war since 2011. However, there is evidence arguing that such interventions promote neoliberal resilience which may have negative impacts on the recipient's future and peacebuilding perceptions. Based on that, this study seeks to investigate how the young Syrian refugees understand resilience and how this affects their future and peacebuilding perceptions given they are EiE interventions’ recipients. This study also seeks to explore the degree of compatibility between the participants’ resilience narrative and the EiE neoliberal narrative. Methodologically, 31 participants settling in Lebanon and Iraq participated in this study to execute Q sorting activities and semi-structured interviews. Three main narratives were unpacked: N1) Resilience as a Developmental Resistance Narrative explaining 38% of the variance, N2) Resilience as a Vulnerable Narrative explaining 6% of the variance, and N3) Resilience as an Apolitical Resistance Narrative explaining 4% of the variance. The results show that N1 and N3 understand resilience as resistance which opposes its neoliberal interpretation. Whilst N1 and N3 agree that their resilience-as-resistance understanding affects positively their personal future, only N1 sees it as an opportunity to enhance their future political habits. N2, on the other hand, sees resilience as a disempowered construct resembling its neoliberal framings which negatively affects their future whether personal or political. As for peacebuilding, N1 sees it as an organic result of social justice and self-development, N2 sees it only as a result of social justice, and N3 doesn’t care how peacebuilding can be achieved. This study concludes that the young Syrian refugees’ dominant resilience-as-resistance understanding is better for their future and peacebuilding perceptions.