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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
"This unique, deeply researched, and beautifully presented volume sheds light on the ongoing transformations inside of regime-controlled areas of Syria during a decade in which most people thought the war had ended and few had access to developments on the ground. Syrians in the Shadow of War is a unique and essential volume produced by an outstanding group of young and long-anonymous Syrian researchers, whose careful, thoughtful, sensitive, and courageous field research goes deep into how Syrian politics, society, state, and economy evolved. Essential reading for understanding why Assad's regime fell so suddenly and the challenges which have followed."—Marc Lynch, The George Washington University, and author of America's Middle East
"Expertly researched, deeply insightful, and beautifully written, this book is a must-read. Its essays probe the most essential issues facing Syria’s recent past, present, and future, bringing them to life with both unique discernment and vivid lived detail. Synaps’s Syria team has been producing vital knowledge anonymously for years. We can now all thank them, by name, for this invaluable and one-of-a-kind contribution."—Wendy Pearlman, author of We Crossed A Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria and The Home I Worked to Make: Voices from the New Syrian Diaspora
"How civilians navigate conflict, secure their needs and protect themselves; how societies break, struggle, and morph; how war entrepreneurs fight, capture, and shape. These are the fundamental questions that this volume illuminates by centering the principal actors of the Syrian tragedy. The methodical, empathetic approach adopted by the writers brings out the angst, confusion, aspirations, and fears that define war, just as much as the geopolitical machinations and battlefield developments that get considerably more attention. Syrians have suffered immensely but they have proven ingenious and resilient: this volume details the many small acts of heroism it takes to survive and hopefully overcome."—Emile Hokayem, International Institute for Strategic Studies
"This is an important book. Based on extensive fieldwork by a new generation of Syrian researchers, it explores the crucial final years of the Assad regime, offering nuanced insight into the struggles of Syrians to endure, even persevere, as Syria’s conflict settled into what appeared as a period of stagnation. Presented with rare depth and empathy, the authors convey a rich sense of the creativity and vitality but also the despair and anxieties that constituted the lived experiences of Syrians during the years from 2018 to the regime's collapse in late 2024. These experiences have shaped the landscape of post-Assad Syria in profound ways, giving this volume relevance as a guide not only to Syria’s recent past, but to how Syrians are navigating the hard work of building a different future."—Steven Heydemann, Smith College
Alex Simon (Edited by) is a researcher, writer, and co-founder of Synaps, a Beirut-based research and training center that conducts intensive fieldwork on socioeconomic trends in the Middle East and broader Mediterranean. From 2017 to 2024, he coordinated Synaps’s team of Syrian researchers working across Syria and neighboring countries. His current research focuses on human mobility, environmental stress, and transnational economic interdependence. He holds a Bachelor’s from Princeton University and an MA from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Matthieu Rey (Afterword by) is a CNRS researcher specializing in contemporary Middle Eastern history, with a special focus on Syria’s and Iraq’s political systems and formerly director of contemporary studies at the Institut français du Proche-Orient (IFPO), Beirut. He is also an associate researcher at the Collège de France and the Wits History Workshop. He is the author of When Parliaments Ruled the Middle East: Iraq and Syria, 1946–63 (AUC Press, 2022).
Peter Harling (Afterword by) is the founder and director of Synaps. He has lived and worked in the Arab world since 1998. He first visited Syria that year, and was based in Damascus between 2006 and 2014. He advised Kofi Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi in their attempts to launch a peace process in Syria.
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