From Expansion to Fragmentation: Aid and Activism among Syrian Refugees

• In Event: After Exile: Refugee Return and the Politics of Displacement

Abstract

More than a series of violent events, civil war is a social process that unfolds throughout a warscape: across multiple realms of daily life and across borders where transnational and local actors converge. My research uncovers abundant evidence of unarmed activism in and around the Syrian warscape. Indeed, against the odds of violence and displacement, activism among Syrian refugees has in times and places expanded, even while it has transformed and assumed distinct and varying characteristics. To understand these trajectories, I propose a connection between activism among refugees and the assistance it receives, forging a theory of aid’s impacts that pays particular attention to the resources offered by external actors engaged in contemporary humanitarian responses. In this paper, I trace one of three processes underlying the relationship between aid and activism: fragmenting, which captures selectivity in the delivery and receipt of assistance. Finite resources in market conditions create competition and insecurity for activist organizations. Fragmentation is exacerbated when aid is funneled, delimited, or, ultimately, discontinued, as occurs as displacement becomes protracted and conflict subsides. In aid’s wake, survival—more than norms and values—becomes a primary organizational imperative for the activists who remain in the host country. For evidence of this process, I draw on multimethod fieldwork conducted in Jordan and Turkey.

Author

• Rana B. Khoury, Northwestern University