Alexandra Schindler

ALEXANDRA SCHINDLER, then a graduate student at City University of New York Graduate Center, New York, New York, was awarded funding in April 2016 to aid research on ‘The Untimeliness of Permanent Transience: The Social Lives of Syrians in Alexandria,’ supervised by Gary Wilder. This project examines the socio-economic relations, urban infrastructures, and informal economies emerging in Alexandria, Egypt through an ethnographic study of Syrian refugees who have migrated since 2011, and their everyday relationship with the city. This research studies the confluence of factors within the city today; large-scale displacement, a lucrative smuggling industry, and the promise of asylum inside Europe’s fast-closing borders – materializing amid Alexandria’s post-Uprising development and revitalization projects, and the peculiar space of permanent transience that emerges from its complex web. This research included interviews with Syrian individuals and families, and participant observation at local community centers and NGOs, as well as extended research with a few families over the duration of the research. The research also included archival work on the modern city and its origins and ethnographic research, including interviews and participant observation, with major social actors in the city.