Ethno-Religious Belonging in the Syrian Conflict: Between Communitarianism and Sectarianization

Abstract

Based on research conducted between 2011 and 2014 on how Syrians experience, interpret, and redefine ethnic and religious-based differences, this article explores the dynamics that have made sectarianism such a salient feature of the Syrian conflict. Two distinct forms of sectarianism are simultaneously at work: a preexisting ethno-religious communitarianism and a more recent, dehumanizing sectarian outlook that emerged during the conflict. While the two are correlated, they are outcomes of different processes and conditions. As a byproduct of the Syrian conflict, sectarianism can thus neither be deemed the outcome of a process superseding the conflict nor the expression of preexisting conditions.