Life stories of non-heterosexual Syrian men : ostracization and renegotiation of family -

Abstract

This thesis sets out to explore the intersectionality of the concept of family and the concept of homosexuality in Syria through an oral history study with ten non-heterosexual men. As the literature on this intersectionality in the regional context of the Arab world is scarce, the main objective of this study is first and foremost to convey the voices of these oral history speakers through the telling of their life stories related to their experiences within the realms of the traditional family. The empirical data of this research is mainly based on the life stories of these ten speakers from in-depth interviews conducted during the spring of 2015, in coordination with Proud Lebanon, a Lebanese civil society organization. To better be able to understand the dynamics at play at the intersections between the traditional Arab family and non-heterosexual family members, I will analyze these stories through the means of oral history, grounded theory and discourse analysis. Further, to be open-minded regarding the possible findings, I did not enter this research with a fixed hypothesis or set research questions. Therefore, based on these life stories, this study does not offer any clear-cut answers to a particular questions, but is more geared towards presenting the breadth of stories, bearing witness of the speakers’ different experiences and struggles, and their various ways of facing them. The findings of the life stories in this thesis will be presented according to five broad conceptual labels. These include: 1) the general life stories related to the sense of childhood and what I have termed ‘rupture’ and the ‘getaway’, 2) the family life stories focusing on the relationships to parents and siblings, 3) the notion of ostracization and loss of family, 4) the renegotiation of family life, and 5) terms of self-identification. Further, the findings of this study will especially highlight the notion of the renegotiation of traditional concepts of family among these non-heterosexual