The questions of how life plans change in the face of war and how and why they influence
refugees migration movements are not fully understood. On the one hand, war and
displacement deeply interrupt and alter peoples previous life plans. Refugees, on the other
hand, also develop coping strategies to deal with radically changing social realities and
experienced trauma, including focusing on hope and aspirations for their futures. With Syrian
refugees constituting a quarter of the estimated global number of forced migrants in 2019,
Syrian displacement is key to understand complex migration trajectories in a protracted refugee
situation. While 5.5 million Syrians fled to neighbouring countries in the Middle East and North
Africa, approximately one million sought refuge in Europe (UNHCR 2019) and 6.1 million
were internally displaced (IDMC 2018).
The project SYREALITY focuses on Syrians who have settled in Europe since the outbreak of
the conflict in Syria in 2011. Building on research from the fields of sociology, migration and
refugee studies, and psychology, it investigates the questions of (i) how broader life aspirations
and social class influence refugees migration decision-making and (ii) how their legal status
and the context of reception in different European cities impact their life aspirations and well-
being. The project builds on the project SYRMAGINE (2017-2019), which dealt with migration
decision-making processes of Syrian refugees settling in Turkey and Lebanon and their
imaginations of Europe.
From an academic perspective, SYREALITY contributes to the literature on migration
decision-making processes, drivers of migration, and the role of aspirations in contexts of
displacement. SYREALITY is innovative on two levels: First, few migration studies have
linked the insights from psychological research to the sociological literature on refugees
migration decision-making to understand the link between trauma, life aspirations, and
mobility. Second, the question which role socio-economic background plays in shaping
refugees migration has not systematically been explored, whose economic resources and
property have often been destroyed or exhausted as a result of war and displacement.
SYREALITY will fill this gap by studying changes in life aspirations and social class belonging
along flight and migration trajectories in a participatory, transnational, cross-national, and
longitudinal way.
Methodologically, SYREALITY will conduct fieldwork in four European cities (Vienna,
Berlin, Budapest, and Athens), in which refugees will play an active role in data collection. It
combines a survey covering individuals major life events and attitudes to migration; narrative
life history interviews; and the drawing of maps of interviewees migration and daily itineraries
through the interviewees to understand their changing nature of challenges, opportunities and
migration trajectories over time.