“I Want to Go Back to Syria; My Family Is There. I Miss Them. But I Cannot Be Selfish. My Daughters Were Raised Here in Türkiye”: Navigating Mixed Identities Following Conflict

The 14-year Syrian Civil War is shifting towards peace following the fall of Bashar Al-Assad, and families of Syrian refugees abroad are making the decision whether to return while navigating the cultural identity of the life they built in a new country. In Türkiye, Syrian families have grown, assimilated, and thrived within new communities, building new personal identities through lived experiences. Adults who fled Syria have deep memories of Syrian culture from before and during the war. However, not all have shared those memories with the children they are raising abroad. Drawing on established frameworks from the foundations of identity and lived experienced from Edward Casey and Marianne Hirsch’s theory of ‘postmemory’ for generations following conflict, this article investigates how family identity is shaped by the omission of familial memories and the narrative of location within personal experiences. Based on interviews in Gaziantep, Türkiye, conducted in July 2025, December 2025, and August 2026, I analyze the evolution of family identity between parents and their children as personal identity is rooted in differing cultures. Through a comparative case study of two Syrian families, this research analyzes personal identity across generations within a family and the impact of return migration on family identity development. Sharing two family stories of conflicting identity, I argue omission of family memories enabled generational foundations to become rooted in a differing culture, creating complexity in family identity.