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Marieke Schöning
After this situation of contested citizenship has been outlined, it is important to note that
citizenship can also be defined as practice or performance, as active instead of static, as
“the political struggles over the capacity to constitute ourselves as a political subject” in
relation to the polities to which we belong (Isin and Nyers, 2014, 8). As such, the concept
of citizenship remains relevant regardless of its formal recognition. Kabeer’s idea of ‘hori-
zontal’ citizenship gains in significance when “state-conferred meaning of citizenship is
blurred or ambiguous” because “horizontal solidarities among fellow citizens also define
people’s sense of who they are, where they belong, and what meanings of citizenship
they carry” (Gaventa and Tandon, 2010, 25). A citizenship lens politicises all matters
and processes of communal life through attaching the dimensions of participation and
accountability (Jones & Gaventa, 2002).
4
Research on substantive dimensions of active
citizenship in the context of displacement is relevant not only with respect to theoretical
rigour, but also as a contribution to more receptive policy making for those directly af-
fected.
This article approaches the friction between a discursive and a substantive side of active
youth citizenship in an international development context through a qualitative study of
the engagements of young, educated Syrians in the refugee aid sector in Lebanon. It
draws on empirical data in the form of in-depth interviews and participant observations,
collected during a fieldwork period in Beirut between January and April 2016. At its foun-
dation lies the observation that many Syrian students or young professionals, whom are
often based in Beirut, personally engaged in the provision of humanitarian aid to ease
the plight of other Syrians. These engagements seem to be a new form of social soli-
darity among Syrian citizens, particularly remarkable given that earlier research depicts
the clandestineness of Syrian civil society and reluctant civic engagement among youth
before 2011 (Belhadj, 2013; Hinnebusch, 1995; Kawakibi & Kodmani, 2013).
The central question to this research therefore was if and how the engagements of young,
educated Syrians in Beirut within the refugee aid sector could be classified as a form of
active youth citizenship, and more importantly, how the research subjects themselves
interpreted their actions. This aims to provide a deeper understanding of how questions
of active citizenship unfold locally under conditions of displacement. By privileging the
interviewees’ interpretations, the research findings question some of the prevailing as-
sumptions on active youth citizenship in international development discourse.
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2. Research Methodology
The study used an exploratory, qualitative research strategy in order to gain in-depth
knowledge of the subjective perceptions of young, educated Syrians in Beirut, who are
4
The terms ‘engagement’ and ‘participation’ are used interchangeably to signify behavioural contributions.
5
This research design was inspired by Gabiam’s (2015) study of how Palestinians in France reflected on the concept of
statelessness.
