Transnational trauma: The social capital and existential (im)mobility of Syrian men in Germany

Abstract

To address the events surrounding the so-called European refugee crisis of 2015, this article combines the concept of transnationalism with an empirical approach to trauma. Transnationalism is highly developed within migration research but research rarely examines the influence of everyday trauma in relation to transnational ties. Furthermore, this approach to trauma is not traditionally analyzed from a purely empirical perspective. Based on three years of ethno-graphic fieldwork across Germany, this research engages with the period of early arrival and the struggle to start a new life under the burden of trauma. The article approaches trauma not as a condition that needs to be treated but as an unescapable subject emerging from fieldwork, which was based in everyday experience. The trauma observed among refugees is examined by showing how the immobility of young men with a strong desire to move existentially, in other words a “stuckedness,” was influenced by traumatic events. As a result of this desire, Syrians shifted their cultural connections to reassert their agency. The article shows how within transnational social fields material and symbolic capital are exchanged as well as negative experiences, triggers of past experiences, and evaluations of future prospects. The most important impact of this interaction is a form of existential immobility shaped by trauma, which inhibited refugees from securely envisioning their future in Germany.