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Contribution short abstract

This paper draws on longitudinal qualitative data (2019-2025) with Syrian young people displaced to Jordan and Lebanon to explore how macro-level volatility intersects with individual and collective political identity and agency, attending to age, gender, education, disability and marital status.

Contribution long abstract

In December 2024, 13 years of violent civil conflict in Syria was ended with the removal of Bashar Al-Assad after 24 years in power. In the year since, the futures of over 6 million Syrian refugees globally have been thrown into question. Many Syrian refugees are young people who have spent the majority of their lives in displacement, many in neighbouring countries such as Lebanon and Jordan where integration was possible to some degree - but must now navigate growing pressure at the national and global level to return to a precarious Syria that they have limited memories of.

Extant research has highlighted tensions between dominant representations of a linear path through time from displacement to integration on the one hand and refugees’ subjective experiences of integration, which are shaped by their socio-political environments. However, less attention has been paid to how these dynamics unfold during the transition through adolescence, how these intersect with gender norms and socialization, nor the broader impact of the global polycrisis on young people’s identities and expectations.

Attending to these concerns, this paper draws on ongoing longitudinal qualitative research with young Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon since 2016. It explores how geopolitical shifts, including the fall of Assad, humanitarian funding cuts and changing global power relations, are shaping integration in each country. Findings explore how these shifts alongside the precarity and volatility of formal integration processes connect with male and female youth’s sense of belonging and anticipation of the future in each country.