TITLE:
Life Stories of Syrian Refugees: A Qualitative Study
AUTHORS:
Philia Issari, Anna Christopoulou, Athina Galika
KEYWORDS:
Life Stories, Narrative, Biographical, Syrian, Refugees, Social Justice, Resilience, Greece
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.12 No.10,
October
21,
2021
ABSTRACT: The present qualitative study adopted a narrative approach and a social justice, strengths-based outlook in order to explore the life stories of Syrian refugees who lived in Greece waiting to relocate to another EU country. Narrative inquiry places the participant in the center of the research process as the “expert” providing an opportunity to be heard in ways that might otherwise be dismissed, ignored or silenced. We conducted biographical narrative interviews, with the help of interpreters in the context of an NGO. Six participants narrated their life stories in a moving and relatively direct way: the times before the war in Syria, the biographical rupture in their lives once the war broke, the much-enduring journey from Syria to Greece across the Aegean sea, what had sustained them so far, their hopes for the future.