Transnational Syria

The geographical lens of the chapter embraces war-related transformations beyond Syria’s borders. It analyses the impact of the conflict on the countries neighbouring Syria. The creation of new borderlands, which demarcate between war and peace but in which features of both are intertwined, is part of this process. Beyond Syria itself, the chapter explores how aspects of the human, economic and political geography of the Middle East have been reconfigured by the conflict. This chapter shows that the protracted displacement of Syrian refugees means that Syrian society now exists beyond territorial Syria. Although this bears important, and possibly long-lasting, geopolitical consequences, the chapter mostly aims to analyse the making, the workings and the spaces of a transnational “diaspora of refugees” that maintains multifaceted and strong ties with ‘territorial’ Syria.