Reckoning with the Inevitable: Death and Dying among Syrian Christians during the Uprising

TY - JOUR

T1 - Reckoning with the Inevitable

T2 - Death and Dying among Syrian Christians during the Uprising

AU - Bandak, Andreas

N1 - E-pub ahead of print. Published online 19 Aug 2014 as "Latest articles" and will later be assigned to a particular issue of the journal, and given page numbers.

PY - 2015/10/20

Y1 - 2015/10/20

N2 - ABSTRACT: Since 15 March 2011, Syria has seen a humanitarian crisis escalate and we are now witnessing outright civil war in many parts of the country. From a relatively peaceful start, the whole affair has turned ugly. Bombs are exploding not just in remote parts of Syria but in its largest cities. Death and dying has now become a salient feature of Syrian life, both inside and outside its national borders. It is this salience of death and dying that I explore in this paper. My focus will be on Syrian Christians and their ways of perceiving the materiality of death. Most centrally, I argue that the fear of extinction that death and dying evoke in the minority prevents them from embracing oppositional politics and is instead used by the regime to propagate the fact that it alone will be able to ensure a future for all of the country's citizens.

AB - ABSTRACT: Since 15 March 2011, Syria has seen a humanitarian crisis escalate and we are now witnessing outright civil war in many parts of the country. From a relatively peaceful start, the whole affair has turned ugly. Bombs are exploding not just in remote parts of Syria but in its largest cities. Death and dying has now become a salient feature of Syrian life, both inside and outside its national borders. It is this salience of death and dying that I explore in this paper. My focus will be on Syrian Christians and their ways of perceiving the materiality of death. Most centrally, I argue that the fear of extinction that death and dying evoke in the minority prevents them from embracing oppositional politics and is instead used by the regime to propagate the fact that it alone will be able to ensure a future for all of the country's citizens.

U2 - 10.1080/00141844.2014.941896

DO - 10.1080/00141844.2014.941896

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0014-1844

VL - 80

SP - 671

EP - 691

JO - Ethnos

JF - Ethnos

IS - 5

ER -