Syrian Refugees, Applied Theater, Workshop Facilitation, and Stories

While They Were Waiting

Fadi Skeiker

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780367469528
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000290141
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Performing Arts

This book analyzes and theorizes the efficacy of using applied theater as a tool to address refugee issues of displacement, trauma, adjustment, and psychological well-being, in addition to split community belonging.

Fadi Skeiker connects refugee narratives to the themes of imagination, home, gender, and conservatism, among others. Each chapter outlines the author's applied theater practice, as a Syrian, with and for Syrian refugees in the countries of Jordan, Germany, and the United States.

This book will be of great interest to scholars, students, and practitioners of applied theater studies and refugee studies.

1 Theory, issues, and stories

Context

At the beginning of the Syrian refugee crisis in 2011, few international organizations were cognizant of the need for psycho-social support among refugees, as most of them were heavily concerned with providing food, water, tents, blankets, and other life essentials to the refugees who were at the time pouring across Syrian borders and into neighboring countries. This was, at the time, one of a series of ongoing regional conflicts. Iraq, to Syria’s east, has struggled through internal violence since the American invasion in 2003, and in this most recent round, Syria, Egypt, Gaza, and Palestine were simultaneously weathering a period of unrest best known as the Arab Spring. Jordan has been named the Switzerland of the Middle East since it is the only country in the region that did not suffer the horrors of war the same way almost all of its neighboring countries had. In the Middle East, Jordan is the only country that has been relatively stable, both socially and politically, and since it kept its borders open throughout 2011, many refugees who left neighboring countries found in Jordan a place to catch their breath before they might leave for somewhere else.

Syrianhood as an identity construct is similar to any identity, not only informed by what persons think about themselves, but also by what others perceive of them as well. In a 2020 report from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Suat Kinikliogu found that in Turkey, where in excess of five million Syrians have migrated, “negative public perceptions toward [Syrian] refugees have grown significantly. Although incidences of violence have been negligible, numerous public opinion polls confirm a stark decline in public support for hosting the refugees” (1).

This shift in the way a Syrianhood is perceived is not restricted to Turkey. For someone like me, a Syrian living in Jordan throughout the refugee crisis, it was easy to notice the change in the way Jordanians perceived us Syrians. I moved to Jordan in 2010 after finishing my Ph.D. at The University of Texas at Austin. I had always been curious about Jordan and was excited to receive my first academic appointment at The University of Jordan. In 2010, when I first arrived in Amman, Syrians were described as “kind,” “intellectual,” or “artistic,” but by 2011 they were being described as unwanted and disruptive. The negative discourse surrounding Syrians has continued since that time, and it informs how Syrians living in Jordan perceive themselves, as they have become the focal point of an old/new human catastrophe called the refugee crisis.

Let’s travel in time to 2011 and walk in the streets of Amman, a beautiful city that is built in the middle of seven mountains, a city unique for the stairs that connect its neighborhoods. In Amman, you hear all kinds of accents, most notably Iraqi, Egyptian, Palestinian, and now Syrian.

In addition to its eastern Jordanians, Jordan is a land composed mostly of second-generation refugees from Palestine and displaced Iraqis; in 2011 it was about to host a new wave, this time Syrians. The pre-existing refugee communities in Jordan were about to increase. Most early refugees came running away from war, millions of them, starting from Palestine in two major waves in 1948 and 1967. Recently, and since 2011, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has claimed the official presence of about 655,000 Syrians in Jordan; however, unofficial numbers predict that up to two million Syrians may be residing there. The numbers are staggering, with about 139,000 of the Syrians living in the Zaatari and Azraq camps (UNHCR, 2020).

At the time that the 2011 crisis emerged, I was happily settled in Jordan, living as a Syrian academic/artist teaching theater at The University of Jordan. At the time I had developed an interest in applied theater and – in addition to my teaching and directing practices – had started leading applied theater workshops and other projects, both locally in Jordan and regionally in Egypt and Lebanon. I had also started publishing about my applied theater work. Imagine my confusion and surprise as my fellow countrymen fled our home by the tens of thousands into a neighboring nation where I was living a comfortable existence. Gone were my weekend trips across the border to visit my family, and a new perception of what it meant to be Syrian in Jordan (and across the Middle East) emerged. In light of the circumstances, I believed it was my best option to use my training to work with other Syrians in the best way I knew how: using theater as a tool for change.

Applied theater field in Jordan

In 2011, I wrote my first article detailing applied theater work I had been conducting with Palestinian refugees in Jordan (Skeiker, 2011). In that article, I argued that the idea of theater as “applied” was not familiar to people in Jordan because most of the work taking place at the time, even in refugee camps and in community centers, revolved around preparing a performance and presenting it to the camp residents. The idea of leading a workshop solely to empower the participants, without thinking about a final product or a public presentation, was uncommon. Many things have changed since then, and it is now difficult to map out all of the exciting projects that are applied in nature and conducted with Syrian refugees in Jordan and the Middle East.

I now think of the time between 2011 and 2015 as a period of explosive interest in the potentials of art therapy, drama therapy, and applied theater as an umbrella for some of those practices. In that window, I saw how eager both refugees and organizations serving them were to try something new and potentially life altering. Reflecting on my own applied theater practices with refugees between 2011 and now, I notice a shift in the way refugee workshop participants respond to my workshops, and I even notice a shift in the way I lead my workshops. In a nutshell, I could summarize the changes with the following points.

• In 2011, workshop participants, mostly Syrian refugees in Jordan, were using applied theater workshops to practice building a public narrative (Ganz, 2011), premised on their individual stories, toward a collective cry for freedom. In 2015, the discourse of the workshop participants was focused on their desire to move to Europe.
• In 2011, my applied theater practice culminated in public presentations, but by 2015 having such public presentations was no longer a consideration.
• In 2011, workshop participants’ narratives most often described confrontations between peaceful changing forces and violent regime forces, while participants in 2015 mostly described struggles related to their refugee journeys.

Over the span of four years, the reasons for refugees’ fleeing shifted from being aligned with one political party or the other to simply escaping circumstances that were dangerous for anyone, regardless of party or affiliation. Similarly, my approach shifted from product-oriented work to process-oriented work. It is difficult for me to determine how the shift happened. It is either that the tragedy became too immense to handle in a performance, or that my practice evolved and participants allowed themselves to share stories so personal in nature that I could not ask them – nor did I want to ask them – to share them publicly. Maybe it is both.

As my practice was changing, so was the field of applied theater in the Middle East. This change can be credited to the social workers, first and foremost, who reached a dead end in their practice and wanted to learn new skills that would allow them to engage their clients. More change came also from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which were allocating funds to do arts work that is “applied” in nature and is not necessarily geared toward having a final artistic product. Combined, the discovery of applied arts in the field of social work and the availability of funding for these projects through NGOs led to a fortuitous combination of will and way, particularly in Jordan where Zaatari Camp was forming, and it seemed that the “weigh station” that it was intended to be was actually shaping into a permanent “city” of its own.

Zaatari Camp

Zaatari Refugee Camp is located in Jordan just two miles across the Syrian border. It was established to accommodate the influx of Syrian refugees who crossed into Jordan after 2011. The camp is a vast, fenced-in land in the middle of the desert where thousands of tents were installed to house tens of thousands of families fleeing the Syrian war. The majority of families living in Zaatari are refugees from the southern part of Syria. This region of Syria is very conservative and tribal, with blood kinship as the dictating factor of their social and even political habitus (Tiltnes, Zhang, & Pedersen, 2019). Art, except for TV series drama, was very limited in their lives.

While residing in Zaatari Camp under very unwelcoming physical conditions (dust, tents, and later, caravans), and facing the challenges of psychological stress, depression, and anxiety among others (Al-Krenawi, 2019), most refugees, and especially teens, are encouraged to participate in one of the arts-based psycho-social support activities that are held within one of the many international organization sites that are located inside the camp. Many refugees decide to engage with these activities because they are bored. Quite simply, they have little or nothing to do in the camp. A secondary reason may be that some of them assume that if they participate in these activities, they will get more “points,” which will help them to be selected for transfer as legal refugees to the west of Jordan. Finally, participating in these activities allows them to make connections with foreigners who are either working for the international organizations or leading the artistic projects.

Regardless of the reasons that entice refugees to join these applied arts projects, their participation is intended to have both short- and long-term effects. In the short run, participants exit more empowered than when they entered. Many of these projects are structured around giving participants small, easily executable tasks that allow them to immediately see the result of their work. Also, most arts-based workshop activities include participants with no tribal or religious connection whatsoever. The only commonality among participants is their shared refugee experiences. These workshops allow them to sit together, talk, converse, and exchange ideas about their stories, while they are simultaneously engaged in an artistic practice that can be related to their experiences or not. Thus, their social connection is strengthened through prolonged exposure and the exchange of intimate dialogue.

In the early years of the refugee crisis, these small and short workshops were influential in creating new social ties among refugees. Such ties and connections overcome the conservative, tribal bonds that depended on religion, families, and gender. In such workshops, many refugees experience socializing with others from outside their tribe, religion, and sometimes gender community for the first time. For many of them, it is the first time participating in an event that resists the conservative nature of the way they were brought up.

Conservatism and applied theater

Arab communities are predominantly religious and conservative. This conservatism presents most clearly in the public sphere of a typical Arab city or town. It is visible in how gender is performed in the street. Women cover their bodies, male catcalling is the norm, and public affection is rare and frowned upon. People are almost never found holding hands. Random pedestrians are empowered by male privilege and anonymity, allowing them to feel free to comment on women’s appearance and clothing without fear of being questioned. The interference is not limited only to catcalling but can also include commenting on a woman’s not wearing hijab or addressing her in derogatory terms related to her gender.

I recall once leading a workshop on gender equality among refugees in Amman, Jordan, in 2014. The workshop participants were refugees from different Arab countries who were residing in Jordan. With them was a group of social activists who work with refugees. I ran the workshop as I normally would when conducting applied theater work. I asked the participants to recall stories of when they felt gender played a role in their life decisions, and then I asked them to dramatize those stories and reflect on them.

While in the middle of the exercise, one of the participants expressed his contempt, complaining that the talk around gender equality in the Arab world is overrated. He defended his position by arguing that in the Arab world men and women are equally paid, while most Western countries are still struggling on that front. The young man also mentioned that the percentage of women who hold powerful political and economic positions in the Arab world is similar to that in Western countries. He continued by saying that all of this emphasis on gender equality is part of a Western conspiracy agenda to culturally invade the fabric of Arab society. In the face of such an incident, and as a facilitator, I struggled with how to progress. I knew that as a practitioner I needed to do the following: 1) give him time to express his thoughts, which I did; 2) hear his argument and try to understand where he was coming from, which I also did; and 3) try not to take sides.

Workshops such as that one which are supported by international organizations tend to attract social activists from around the Arab world. Similarly, they are typically attended by like-minded Arab youth who are eager to change the male-centered and patriarchal dynamics that pervade Arab communities. In the aforementioned workshop, and in consideration of the population, I decided to take that moment as a teaching opportunity about engaging in dialogue on issues of disagreement. Instead of answering the young conservative man, I decided to direct the question to the group and ask them to respond to him. The others engaged, and the discussion went on. After a while, I began to feel that the dialogue was not winding down. It was about 7 pm, and sunset was looming.

The workshop took place in Al-Balad Theater, one of the few alternative cultural sites in Amman. Al-Balad Theater had the reputation of bringing unique experiences to their audiences and getting audiences to engage in conversations about the arts and community activism. The site is beautifully located on Amman Mountain and very close to downtown Amman where there is a very famous falafel place. To get there from the theater, you descend a beautiful staircase that leads from Amman Mountain directly to downtown. The stone stairway is full of p...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword: in search of imagination
• Introduction: prologue
• 1 Theory, issues, and stories: context
• 2 Jordan: youth, gender, and discovering the individual
• 3 Germany: organizing and facilitating a workshop
• 4 The United States: serving the refugee, connecting with the community
• Conclusion: epilogue
• Index