4 - Studying Syria “from the Verandah”

Summary

At its heart, this is a book about the social and political lives of Syrians who rose up against the Assad regime and found themselves governing their own affairs for a sustained moment in time. We will consider, in the coming pages, how they understood the new authoritarianism of the Islamic State in Raqqa, the transition from popular protest to a kind of elite consolidation in Saraqeb, the deprivation under siege in Darayya, and the semi-anarchic choreography of violent competition in eastern Aleppo. Before delving into our findings, we will spend a few pages discussing the methods we mobilized in the service of this research and the means by which we designed (and redesigned) our study along the way. While some readers may wish to skip this look behind the curtain, we want to offer transparency about the means employed, the challenges that arose, and the quandaries therein.¹