| Summary/Abstract |
Taking an ethnographic point of departure in the stories of three Syrian middle-class men in Amman, Jordan, in this article, I zoom in on the role of care in the everyday of exile, as I explore the young men’s attempts to be “responsible” young men despite challenging circumstances. Guided by Ahmed’s (2006) notion of lifelines, defined as those which direct us and allow us to find our way (ibid.: 12–14), I demonstrate how gendered norms and notions became objects of reflection and experimentation in exile, both enabling and forcing the young men I worked with to think through other ways of leading life as a man. Finding further inspiration in Naguib’s (2015) and Ghannam’s (2013) works on masculinity and care in the Middle East, I consider care as central to the process of negotiating a masculine identity in general as well as to the reconfiguration of a meaningful masculine position in exile specifically.
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