From local revolutionary action to exiled humanitarian work: activism in local social networks and communities’ formation in the Syrian post-2011 context - Ruiz de Elvira, Laura (Social Movement Studies, 2019)
Based on empirical material collected in Lebanon and Turkey in 2014 and 2016, this paper focuses on Syrian activists and social aid networks operating from exile from 2011 onwards. By paying attention to what these activists do and say, to their individual trajectories (namely during the 2011 period and the first months of popular protests), and to their immediate ‘environment’, I shed light on how they give meaning to their humanitarian activity and on how they relate to politics. I also explore the way in which activists explicitly and implicitly contribute to the changing political dynamics of the conflict, for instance by supporting and constructing Syrian (exiled, displaced and besieged) communities. In so doing, I illustrate how informal networks created in situations of uprising may find an exit strategy by institutionalizing themselves and how they adapt to a context of war characterized by fluidity, the sudden pluralization of the political arena and the need to negotiate space and resources with multiple ‘players.’ KEYWORDS: Activism, social networks, (de)politicization, relief, Syrian uprising, war
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