Lives and Futures from Ruination

Through an ethnographic account of the various forms of ruination experienced by Syrians displaced to Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, the article investigates the stakes of Syrians’ attempts to forge worthwhile lives and futures in refuge. Against perspectives that centre the biographical or political in critiques of humanitarianism’s exclusive focus on the biological and survival, it argues that recovering the viable parts of one’s previous existence in a context of ongoing social, economic and legal dispossession is exactly the challenge and amounts to a form of ruination. As Syrians attempted to reconcile the standards they had established in Syria with the realities of life in displacement during conflict, hesitations and doubts about what was worth salvaging and at what price were at the forefront of their contemplations. Hence, for my interlocutors, the biographical and political were questions rather than answers regarding the issue of forging a life and a future.