Ephemeral geopolitics: Tracing the role of refugees in Syria's transnational opposition

Abstract

It has become common to read that Syria's conflict has become a “globalized civil war,” with the understanding that states have become the key actors shaping its dynamics. While in great part true, such an understanding overlooks the significance of transnational networks in shaping the conflict and, more importantly, how these networks and states have been intimately connected from its early stages. This paper explores how a network of Syrian refugees that I dub the “coordinating class” performed the work of binding together the heterogeneous assemblage that was Syria's opposition movement. Drawing on assemblage theory and two years of multi-sited fieldwork, the paper explores three practices through which this emergent network linked the spaces of exile to the warzone of Syria's opposition-held “Liberated Territories.” In doing so, the paper argues that in Syria's conflict, refugees' geopolitical agency was highly layered, provisional, and ephemeral, yet still shaped the wider geopolitics of the war.