Centered on the lived experience of individuals from Aleppo, Dislocated examines how they confronted the feeling of their own transience. It follows their strategies of coping with personal loss, particularly in relation to the old city of Aleppo.  During the war from 2012 to 2016, the traumatic experience of loss of friends, of family members, of property, and of historical monuments became a daily event. In this state of permanent injury, Aleppines received news daily about the damage being inflicted upon the historic center of Aleppo, and about the (inter)national mourning taking place over this loss of tangible heritage.

This book  focuses on acts of positioning toward and against the dislocation that Aleppines experienced. It tracks the way in which they situated their sense of belonging, and self-identification in relation to the destroyed UNESCO World Heritage Site, the articulations around Aleppine Islamic architecture during the (pre-)colonial era, and the temporal dislocation of preserving already-destroyed heritage. Having been displaced by the warring parties, Aleppines found in this experience of dislocation an inner affirmation that, in turn, promised to dislocate the dominant discourses that had negated them.