Seeking Middle-Classness

How do young adult university students in a region affected by war and conflict make sense of narratives of middle-classness? And how do these narratives relate to hegemonic representations of life in a wartorn region? This thesis explores narratives of aspired middle-classness among university students in urban Iraqi Kurdistan. Ethnographic research in the city of Sulaimani in the relatively peaceful moment of 2012 grasps the ambivalent position of young adult university students at the crossroads between their memories of war and political conflict and their dreams of a peaceful and successful middle-class future.