Deconstructing the civilization history

Abstract: This study is aimed at qualitatively and empirically questioning the established notion of a world based on civilizations. The study will take its stance in two fundamentally different theories within the Civilization Paradigm, The Clash of Civilizations by Samuel Huntington and The Clash Within Civilizations by Dieter Senghaas, and respectively compare these in relation to the empirical data consisting of seven semi-structured interviews conducted with young men and women living in Syria. The purpose of the study is to contrast and compare the narratives presented by the two theories on clashing civilizations with an alternative, non-Western, narrative. This analysis will be done through the lens of Hayden White’s theory on historical emplotment and by a methodology of discourse analysis and social constructionism. The results of the study point toward an alternative and anti-essentialist narrative, presented in the analysis of the interviews, which tend to see the “civilizations” suggested by Huntington and Senghaas as rather heterogeneous, incoherent and contradictory things. The visions of reality mediated by the interviewees also suggest that these are formulated in correlation to Hayden White’s archetypical narratives of Comedy and Satire, as opposed to Huntington and Senghaas’ versions of civilizations constructed in modes of Romance and Tragedy.