Full Description
Gripping accounts of how ordinary Syrians strove to survive the hardships that preceded the Assad regime's collapse
Activists striving in the shadow of Syria's police state; widows launching small businesses to feed their families; farmers tending fields battered by destruction, pollution, and drought: their voices are as central to Syria's conflict as they are absent from most discussions of it. Drawing on more than three thousand interviews between 2017 and 2024, Syrians in the Shadow of War explores how ordinary people began picking up the pieces as battle lines froze and global interest in Syria waned. It documents the social and economic decay that preceded the Syrian regime's spectacular collapse: the hollowing out of public services and productive industries, the disintegration of social ties, the trauma of a war seemingly without end. Equally important, it captures the resourcefulness through which Syrians helped one another survive, and which will prove vital in the uncertain stage ahead.
This book is itself a testament to such tenacity: born of on-the-ground fieldwork by Syrian analysts in one of the world's most forbidding research environments, thesefindings concern anyone with a stake in Syria's future or that of other post-conflict societies—from grassroots organizers to international policymakers.
Contributors:
Lina Ghoutouk, researcher and human rights practitioner, Damascus, Syria
Lina Omran, graduate student, Danube University Krems, Austria
Malak al-Shanawani, researcher, filmmaker, and feminist activist, Damascus, Syria
Manar al-Tizini, psychologist and social researcher, Marseille, France
Contents
Note on Contributors
Introduction: Snapshots from the Day Before Alex Simon
Chapter 1: Being Syrian
Forced Coexistence
No Damascus like Home
The Generation Gap
Retreat, Reconcile, Resist
In Transition: Opening the Floodgates
Chapter 2: Organizing in the Crevices
Latakia and Tartous: Negotiation and Cooptation
Informal Civic Networks
Faith-based Charities
Homs: Depth and Divison
Raqqa and Deir Ezzor: Dependence and Precarity
The Bottom-up Covid Response
In Transition: Out of the Shadows
Chapter 3: Engaging from Outside
In Search of Entries
The Lebanese Crash
The Turkish Crackdown
The Remittance Crunch
Small-scale Investment
Accountability from Abroad
The Dialogue Industry
In Transition: The Bumpy Road Home
Chapter 4: Negotiating the State
State, Regime, and Society
The Undead State
The Aid Lifeline
Surrealist Property Laws
Monopolizing Civil Documents
In Transition: Reconstructing the State?
Chapter 5: Serving Public Services
Divided Secondary Schools
Decaying Universities
The Mental Health Crisis
Withering Agriculture
Vanishing Water
Elusive Internet
In Transition: Beyond Crowdfunding
Chapter 6: Staying in Business
The Beseiged Business Class
The Economic Battlefield
Women to the Front
Women-led Businesses
In Transition: Still Surviving
Conclusion: Into the Day After
Afterword Matthieu Rey and Peter Harling
Additional Reading
