4 - How Psychological Transformations Change Conflict Understandings

Summary

This chapter shows how PTG and PTSD influence civilian understandings of conflict. It focuses on how civilians consume narratives that elites produce. If civilians lose their ability to continue believing narratives as they evolve, then they undergo a narrative rupture. Narrative ruptures include a loss of understanding of options for survival, so it tends to prompt motivation for migration. The chapter's development of the concept of narratives allows the book to connect processes of PTG and PTSD with how civilians select specific survival strategies. It then describes government and opposition narratives in Syria, illustrating how elites compete to produce the narrative that the largest amount of civilians will believe. After that, it provides numerous examples of narrative ruptures that occurred for respondents that the author interviewed. Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion of implications for narrative rupture on the debate over safe return vs. voluntary return.