The Right to Meaning

Thu 14 November 2024

Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

Examining the engagement of exiled Syrian intellectuals with the traumatic events of the 2011 revolution-turned-war in their country, the author argues that it is not a failure in the ‘cultural trauma process’ itself that prevents horrific events in non-western contexts from becoming recognised as cultural traumas. Instead, it is the failure to translate narratives of wrongdoing into formal acknowledgements and material or symbolic reparations. This failure is articulated by Syrian intellectuals as a ‘denial of meaning’. Many Syrian intellectuals construed the emancipatory demands of the Syrian uprising as claims for a right to meaning, that is, demands to restore language and existential purpose through public engagement and the revival of politics and speech. Equally, they saw as ‘denial of meaning’ the reality that their trauma work did not prevent the endurance and gradual rehabilitation of the regime but was met instead with the relegation of the movement to the agenda of the War on Terror. Such a framework rests on a perceived dichotomy between those entitled to ‘meaning’ and those whose lives are accepted and treated as devoid of it or denied it.
Zeina Al Azmeh is a political sociologist at the University of Cambridge, research and teaching associate in political sociology at the Department of Sociology and a Fellow of Selwyn College. Her expertise includes cultural sociology and the sociologies of intellectuals, memorialisation, and migration, particularly in the context of forced displacement.
Her recent publications include "Trauma Work as a Hindrance to Political Praxis During Democratisation Movements" in Theory and Society, and "The Right to Meaning: A Syrian Case Study" in Cultural Sociology. Her first book, Syrian Intellectuals in Exile: The Dilemmas of Revolution and the Cost of Leaving, is under contract with Cambridge University Press.

Zeina earned her PhD in Sociology from the University of Cambridge in 2021, focusing on the involvement of exiled Syrian intellectuals in France and Germany during the Syrian Revolution (2011). Prior to Cambridge, she lectured in medical humanities and held leadership roles in higher education. She also holds a Master's degree in Social and Cultural Theory, a Bachelor's in piano performance, and a Master's in composition.

Tea & coffee from 5pm - talk starts at 5.15pm UK time
All are welcome.

Cost: Free