Syria's catastrophic conflict has displaced more than half of the population since 2011. This tragedy has given rise to a diverse scholarship interested in the conditions of displacement, the politics of care and protection, host country settlement regimes, and the possibilities for repatriation. Dawn Chatty's rich text encourages us to take a step back and think about Syria as a refuge state to contextualize the current displacement crisis that Syrians face with centuries-long processes. Chatty weaves together an approach that ties regional transformations from the 1800s until present day to the mass movement of different peoples (Circassians, Armenians, Kurds, Palestinians, and Iraqis) into what is today Syria. This historical analysis is enriched with dozens of interviews conducted prior to and after 2011 that serve to provide important insights into how seismic political shifts have shaped familial and community life in Syria. The book's central theme is how displaced people found refuge and sanctuary in Syria amid regional political instability. By introducing us to distinct periods of communal displacement and settlement in Syria, Chatty allows readers to contextualize the mass displacement of Syrians after 2011 within broader, historically contingent patterns that had forced so many others since the 1800s into Syria.
The book begins with a chapter about human movement in the late Ottoman period and follows with seven chapters focused mostly on specific communities forced into (or out of) modern day Syria. As a wide survey of forced migration across three centuries beginning with Ottoman contraction in the early-to-mid 1800s through to the present-day Syrian refugee crisis, the book does not aim to offer novel understandings of forced migration in Ottoman and post-Ottoman lands. Instead, Chatty's book is a broad survey of how displacement was an effect of major political transformations in the region, such as national self-determination movements, the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the mandate period, and the creation of Israel. The book is readable and engaging and will be of use to students or researchers with an introductory interest in learning about displacement in the region. The wide geographic and temporal scope of the book limits the depth of analysis, but readers leave each chapter with a sound understanding of the historical contours of each case. This broad historical narration is complimented with interviews that provide granular insights into what movement into Syria meant for affected people and communities and how Syria emerged as a home for Arabs and non-Arabs alike.
The collapse of the Ottoman Empire provides the context for the first three chapters dealing with Caucasian, Armenian, and Kurdish displacement and settlement in Syria. These chapters help readers understand both the causes of displacement and patterns of settlement. Circassians, for example, first settled in the Jaulan (Golan) in the late 1800s where they were eventually drawn into conflict with bedouin and Druze communities. Like other Caucasian communities settling in Syria in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Circassians slowly integrated into emergent political structures, learned Arabic, and became “loyal citizens of Syria” before, decades later, being forcibly displaced again after the Six Day War (p. 76). The chapter on Armenian communities focuses principally on the dispersal of survivors of the Turkish genocide throughout the Syrian provinces of the empire and how coreligionists and their institutions helped facilitate settlement and integration. Similarly, the chapter on Kurdish migration into Syria begins with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the Shaykh Said rebellion, illustrating how the failed fight for independence in the 1920s (and subsequent struggles through the 1960s) forced Kurdish populations to settle in northeastern Syria. An important theme running through this chapter is how the stateless status of many Kurds inhibited their political integration into a multiethnic state that was by the later 20th century defining itself as Arab.
The political instability and turmoil of the late Ottoman period continued through the mandate period, culminating in the creation of Israel in 1948 and the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) that forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into Syria. Here, Chatty shows how differential patterns of settlement, employment, and legal status contributed to shaping four generations of Palestinian life in Syria. The tone of the chapter emphasizes that Bilad al-Sham (Greater Syria) had an affective and cultural resonance among Palestinians, making their integration much easier than that of Kurds and others. The argument that Palestinians’ integration stems from “Palestinians’ historical connectedness with Greater Syria” requires more interrogation given the violence and restrictions they faced in Lebanon, another country part of Greater Syria (p. 175). The trajectory of post-mandate state formation in both Syria and Lebanon helps to explain differential Palestinian integration in both countries as much as, if not more, than affective ties.
The subsequent chapter diverts from a strict focus on specific communal groups to asking how the neighborhood of Shaʿlaan emerged as a “cosmopolitan quarter.” As the only chapter in the book that substantively deals with the interactions among the displaced after they settled in Syria, it provides important perspective on how those seeking refuge found it decade after decade in Shaʿlaan.
The experiences of Iraqis and “second wave” Assyrians after the American-led occupation of Iraq in 2003 are explored in the penultimate chapter. Unfortunately, this chapter relies extensively on historical discussions of Iraqi identity that deflect from understanding the experiences of the millions of Iraqis who came into Syria in the early 2000s. There are several important questions about the Iraqi experience that are left underexplored, relating to secondary mobility, residential patterns (outside of Damascus), relations with Syrians and others, and repatriation. The final chapter flips the script and asks us to think about Syria as a refugee-producing state rather than a place of refuge. This discussion focuses on the broader causes of Syrian displacement before short sections on Syrian experiences in Europe, Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey. A brief, compassionate reflection on how mass displacements since the late Ottoman period have engendered tolerance and hospitality among both Syrians and the wider region ends the book.
Such sentiments are consistent with Chatty's focus on refuge and sanctuary, but they tend to betray the actual experiences that Syrians are facing today, as forced repatriation and a general climate of hostility exist in places like Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan, where most Syrians currently reside. Chatty's emphasis on refuge often deflects from questions of political power that are important to understanding why people came, where they settled, and how they related to the state. Such an inquiry into Palestinians’ relationship to the state would not have deflected from the overall theme of refuge and sanctuary but given more nuance to readers’ understanding. The closest the book comes to providing insight into state–community relations is in the discussion of statelessness and the Kurds. By focusing mostly on how the displaced were received by ordinary Syrians, we tend to lose sight of how these relations were ultimately shaped by political power and Baʿthist state formation. Exploring the tension between social hospitality and state hostility toward the displaced would have strengthened the book and allowed readers to better understand important tensions that bore down on the lives of people in Syria.
Despite these issues the book can serve as an important primer for students and researchers interested in understanding patterns of displacement and settlement in Syria and the wider region. The historical grounding is interesting and well presented, and Chatty is adept in showing how governance patterns from the late Ottoman through the mandate period created political residues that were consequential to why people left their lands and why they settled in Syria. By complimenting this historical analysis with several interviews, Chatty provides a lively text that poses interesting questions that may lead interested readers to pursue further research into displacement.
