RAP IN EXILE: SYRIAN DIASPORA, HYBRIDITY AND DIGITAL CULTURAL PRODUCTION IN GERMANY

This dissertation examines Syrian rap as a locus of diasporic cultural production among displaced musicians, principally those residing in Germany, to expound how these artists construct and negotiate identity, belonging and political subjectivity through sonic and digital practices. Situated within scholarly debates on diaspora, transnationalism and cultural citizenship, the study contends that rap operates as a pivotal medium through which exiled creators articulate experiences of fragmentation, marginalisation and re‑anchoring within host societies. Adopting a reflexive, digitally‑grounded ethnographic methodology, the research draws on qualitative data collected between 2022 and 2024. The corpus comprises semi‑structured interviews with a purposively selected sample of male and female Syrian rappers, close textual and visual analyses of lyrics and accompanying aesthetics, and digital ethnography of platformed activity on YouTube, Instagram and related social media. Methodological consistency is ensured through sustained attention to researcher positionality, access constraints and the ethics of studying precarious cultural scenes in exile. Findings reveal that Syrian rap in Europe is embedded within fragmented networks shaped by forced‑migration trajectories, legal precarity, gendered hierarchies and platform governance regimes. While rap enables performers to voice narratives of displacement, loss and political disenchantment, it also surfaces intra‑community tensions of competition, mistrust and unequal resource distribution. The concept of digital de‑integration is introduced to describe strategic withdrawals from visibility regimes, linguistic assimilation anxieties and institutional co-optation, thereby resisting algorithmic commodification of refugee creativity. A gender‑focused sub‑analysis demonstrates that female Syrian rappers navigate a predominantly masculinised rap field through selective visibility, linguistic modulation and curated digital self‑presentation, tactics that mitigate exposure to harassment and reputational risk. Their practices illuminate the intersection of gender, migratory status, class and language in structuring access to cultural participation. Collectively, the study challenges reductive readings of Syrian rap as merely political resistance or integrationist discourse. Instead, the genre constitutes a complex arena of diasporic cultural production wherein belonging is continuously negotiated via aesthetic experimentation, digital labour and everyday survival strategies. By foregrounding the voices and practices of displaced artists, this research contributes to sociological debates on migration, musicology and digital culture, offering a nuanced account of how exilic musicians reconfigure cultural forms to assert presence, negotiate constraints and envisage possibilities within contemporary European contexts.