Description
This paper studies the Syrian activists’ experiential knowledge of the Syrian Revolution. It plumbs the tension of being situated both in violence and nonviolence while standing up for freedom and dignity. Puzzling over this situatedness – impossible people in an impossible revolution – matters because it asks us to consider, following Judith Butler, how lives can be (made) so livable and unlivable at the same time. So doing, it disrupts narratives of the Syrian revolution that, firstly, fail to take into account the complex structures of violence within which the Syrian revolution unfolded; and secondly, operate with binaries of revolution-war, nonviolence-violence. Remaining curious about the Syrian activists’ actual experience and circumstances – while aware of the limitations of my scope – this article provides, relying on decolonial feminist perspectives, a more experiential and relational reading of the Syrian revolution.
