Authoritarianism, Displacement and Syrian Family Life

"Authoritarianism, Displacement and Syrian Family Life: Reckoning with the State" unfolds how the extensive amount of contemplation necessary to interact with the authoritarian Syrian State had made Syrians keenly aware of the ways in which the state co-shaped even minute details of their personal and social lives and shows how this resulted in Syrians’ continued thinking with the Syrian State even as they were displaced from it.
To make this argument, the book traces how Syrians’ attempts to position themselves regarding the Syrian conflict and displacement were impacted by their wrestling with the ways in which the authoritarian Syrian State had marked their family relationships, senses of self and perceptions of their place in the world.
Based on long-term fieldwork in Lebanon and Turkey and drawing on the years Holst lived in Syria before 2011, the book thus traces the lasting effects of authoritarianism and its overlaps with the conditions of living through conflict and in displacement.