The Impossible Revolution

Abstract

The Syrian conflict, beginning in 2011, has escalated into a complex crisis marked by the aggressive response of the Assad regime and geopolitical power struggles. Humanitarian consequences, including mass displacement, neoliberal reconstruction policies, and environmental degradation, pose substantial risks. The 2023 earthquake has made the humanitarian situation severely worse. Oversimplification, selective compassion, and a business-oriented research approach hinder comprehensive academic engagement. This multifaceted problem manifests as the appropriation, oversight, and commodification of the Syrian narrative, evoking a sense of a stolen story among Syrians. The thesis will reclaim the Syrian narrative by researching the procedural urban practices that have contributed to the conflict and have led to the worsening of the violations. It will investigate how spatial planning can be a narrative tool to provoke change, provide alternative realities, and bring war-torn societies back together. That is, by first analyzing and mapping the unjust spatial consequences of the authoritarian practices before and after the uprising and, second, embracing the current grassroots movements. As a result, the thesis will provide a framework for change that deals with the political complexity of the context and provides a conciliation tool toward social-political reconciliation. Those different outcomes contribute to bringing justice, freedom, and co-existence back to Syrians.