Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the multiple ways in which young Syrian men engage in processes of mimetic self-alteration in order to explore and inhabit their new worlds in Berlin. It examines how this mimetic semiotic play becomes equal parts empowering and threatening to notions of self and identity.

Paper long abstract:

Ahmed is a Syrian refugee I got to know during my ethnographic research with asylum seekers in Berlin between the years of 2017-2022. He had a reputation among his group of friends for being a little bit eccentric, but it still came as a surprise when he unceremoniously told a group of us that he had converted to Christianity. Since his arrival in Berlin, Ahmed had lived in a church and he explained away his decision as a simple attempt to make the people he lived around more comfortable, insisting he’d just convert back to Islam when he left. Yet the concern remained and shortly after he left one of his friends said simply, “religion is not a haircut!”. I found the phrase compelling because it directly addressed another puzzle. Almost all of the young, male, Syrian refugees I knew had grown out their hair after arriving in Berlin, wearing it in a bun at the back of their heads. None had long hair in Syria. That this surprisingly patterned form of expression seemed to share in a certain kind of Berliner, hipster/male/vegan/upper-class aesthetic identity did not elude me. I wondered - did their hair represent a kind of mimetic improvisation that aimed to ease their entry into Berliner life? What, then, separated religion from a haircut? This paper explores the way refugees navigate the mimetic expectations of their new worlds, exploring when it becomes about semiotic play and when it appears to cut too close to the bone.