#NO_LONGER_REFUGEES: How dignity drives Syrians’ return in the post-Assad era

Syria's December 2024 liberation from five decades of Assad family rule has created unprecedented conditions for return migration. An estimated 1.6 million Syrians voluntarily repatriated from neighbouring countries within one year despite their homeland's devastated infrastructure requiring $250-400 billion in reconstruction. However, 3.6 million Syrians remain registered in host countries where they can access electricity, functioning healthcare, stable employment, and the material security that Syria struggles to provide. My research examines how social media platforms mediate the lived experiences of three interconnected populations navigating this critical transitional moment: Syrians who remain in Türkiye under increasingly restrictive protection regimes, returnees confronting Syria's severe reconstruction challenges, and Syrians who never left their homeland throughout fourteen years of the revolution.

Forced migration scholarship has extensively documented digital technologies' role during displacement journeys yet remains largely silent on how platforms function during return processes. An analysis of  hundreds of social media posts of Syrian returnees reveals dignity-driven logic as a common theme. Testimonies circulating across digital platforms reveal that repatriation centres fundamentally on restored national belonging, psychological liberation from both regime surveillance and host country restrictions, and reclamation of uncompromised Syrian identity freed from the stigmatisation that can come with the label ‘refugee’. These findings suggest that dominant analytical paradigms which reduce mobility decisions to material calculations regarding security assessments, economic opportunities, and housing availability, may be insufficient on their own. The findings invite comparative inquiry into whether similar dignity-centred motivations shape return across other displacement contexts.

What exile costs, what liberation restores

Syrian digital discourse reveals profound insights about what displacement costs and what liberation restores. Testimonies describe exile as spiritually harmful where returning to Syria was described as: "the soul returned to the body," rendering return as spiritual restoration regardless of physical hardships, whilst the declaration that "a loaf of bread eaten in my homeland is worth nothing less than paradise" articulates the priceless value of dignity, which cannot be traded for material improvements under the shadow of authoritarianism or under restrictive host country regimes which deny full belonging.

Syrian testimonies reveal how fourteen years living under the label ‘refugee’ has caused ongoing trauma as the label contradicted cultural values around faith, dignity, and honour, with one testimony articulating that "the words that used to infuriate me most were 'Syrian, refugee, displaced person'" whilst another described having to "prove to myself first, and to the Swede, that I am not a refugee, that I am an important person" during exile in Sweden. These accounts expose how protection frameworks developed with humanitarian intentions may reproduce asymmetric power relations. Displaced people may be required to perform victimhood to access rights and services, which can leave them feeling stripped of agency, dignity, and the capacity for self-determination.

My MSc research at the University of Oxford suggests that online hostility may shape return and destination choices for some Syrian refugees in Türkiye . Integration failures and digital antagonism may inadvertently accelerate repatriation to uncertain conditions, thereby undermining both protection principles and the stated policy objectives of voluntary, informed return based on accurate information about homeland conditions.

Challenging refugee-migrant binaries, considering the agency of those who stayed and seeing return as a fluid process

My research challenges three fundamental assumptions dominating forced migration studies whilst offering alternative conceptual frameworks. First, it interrogates refugee versus migrant binaries by examining how Syrians collectively reject imposed categorisations through viral digital declarations transforming from "Syrian refugee" to "Just Syrian" following regime collapse. This challenges humanitarian frameworks treating refugee status as an ontological condition requiring external conferral and removal, instead revealing how displaced populations exercise agency in defining their own positions when the political conditions that enable such redefinition emerge.

Second, the research extends mobility scholarship by examining Syrians who remained throughout the conflict as constitutive reference points whose digital narratives contest, confirm, or complicate displaced and returning populations' experiences. Their narratives demonstrate that choosing to stay can involve as much agency as choosing to leave under conditions where both constitute constrained choices, rather than freely selected preferences.

Third, the research shows that return is a process rather than a conclusive act. It shows that returnees maintain digital connections to former host countries, access diaspora networks for remittance support, and preserve options for potential re-migration should Syrian conditions deteriorate. These findings challenge singular notions of sustainable return by demonstrating how contemporary displacement resolution operates through fluid transnational positioning rather than definitive territorial fixity.

Policy implications for humanitarian actors and governments

This research is immediately relevant for actors navigating the challenge of supporting mass return to a liberated yet infrastructurally devastated homeland. For UNHCR and humanitarian organisations, understanding how digital platforms mediate return decision-making reveals the inadequacy of conventional assessment frameworks that privilege material factors such as security, housing, and employment whilst overlooking dignity, psychological liberation, and restored national belonging as primary return drivers. Current surveys systematically omit questions about freedom from authoritarian control, potentially misdiagnosing why 1.6 million Syrians repatriated within a year despite severe reconstruction challenges. My findings challenge humanitarian actors to develop dignity-centred return support programmes rather than exclusively infrastructure-focused interventions, recognising that returnees’ may prioritise psychological restoration over economic optimisation.

For the Syrian transitional government, international donors and development agencies allocating reconstruction resources, understanding that returnees prioritise dignity and belonging, supporting transitional justice, democratic institution-building, and dignified reintegration processes that address the root causes of displacement may prove more sustainable than infrastructure investment alone. Beyond Syrian-specific applications, these insights illuminate broader patterns relevant to protracted displacement contexts globally where political transformation may precede material stability. These implications might challenge policymakers to reconceptualise return support beyond conventional post-conflict reconstruction models toward frameworks recognising that dignified existence under liberated governance may outweigh material deprivation under authoritarian rule or indefinite exile in restrictive host country regimes.