Present/absent futures: waiting in the aftermath of a defeated revolution

What is it about?

This article explores time and temporality in the wake of the defeat of the Syrian 2011 revolution. Based on ethnographic fieldwork among Syrian revolutionaries in Gaziantep, Turkey; it argues that waiting for detainees to be freed, for return to the homeland or for the revolutionary cycle's repetition and closure, deeply modifies displaced Syrians' relation to present, past and future. Syrians' waiting thus appears reversed - directed to the past and awaiting a different repetition of the past - for, in this context, the temporality of displacement is simultaneously a temporality of the aftermath of defeat.

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Photo by Hadija on Unsplash

Photo by Hadija on Unsplash

Why is it important?

It explores the temporal effects of political defeat on Syrians' everyday life.