L’anthropologie face au conflit syrien : replacer la société au cœur de l’analyse

Abstract

The war in Syria has caused more than 250 000 people, millions of displaced people and refugees and devastated hundreds of towns. This unprecedented crisis led to the physical destruction of Syria and its territorial fragmentation but also the disruption of the society and what makes society generally. Anthropology is directly challenged by this humanly dramatic situation : how to grasp the radical transformation of the daily conditions of existence and functioning of Syrian society ? How to keep doing anthropology in Syria while this activity is primarily based on a long‑term presence in the country ? What role anthropology can it still hold in a context of proliferation of speech “experts” in the media ? Methodological and ethical questions this article attempts to answer by proposing to rely on an approach that is both empirical, off center and away from the Syrian conflict while reiterating the urgency to replace the Syrian society at the heart of the analysis.

Keywords

• civil society
• violence
• Syria
• war
• fieldwork
• anthropology