Creating transformative spaces through storytelling : #MeWeSyria- A case study

Abstract: Oppression of voice has continued for displaced Syrians, beyond the ‘kingdom ofsilence’ under the Assad dictatorship, in the form of dominant media narratives, oftennegative, which fail to represent their lived realities. This case study explored the waysin which storytelling, within the program #MeWeSyria, creates a space for Syrianvoices in southeast Turkey and how this space could be transformative. The researchfocused on the process of storytelling, as a process of voice (Couldry, 2010) rather thanthe stories themselves as media products. Eleven semi-structured interviews wereconducted with members of the #MeWeSyria community, from three different levels:participants, facilitators and staff. Analysis considered the characteristics of the#MeWeSyria space, in relation to providing a space for the process of voice to flourish,in light of Wheeler et al.’s (2018) ‘transformative storywork’, and demonstrated theways in which this space could be transformative on personal, interpersonal and broadercommunity-societal levels. This research suggests that #MeWeSyria creates a space forSyrian voices by operating as a Syrian-led, participatory, community space whichcreates the conditions for the process of voice to flourish. In this space, personal andcollective consciousness and a sense of agency is developed, which are revealed as thestarting point for engagement in action for further change, on interpersonal, communityand societal levels. #MeWeSyria is shown to defend, at its core, voice as value(Couldry, 2010), the right of each person to tell their own story and the principle thatevery voice matters.