68
Marieke Schöning
wouldn’t say because I’m Syrian – because this is something humanitarian. [...]It’s
definitely one of my motivations. I loved that I’m helping something that is related
to my country, you know. Because it was so sad for me; it was just by luck that I
wasn’t one of them. Because I came from a normal background, and I just had a
chance. Someone offered me a scholarship in [name of a prestigious university in
Beirut], so I was in the same level, so that’s why. That’s one motivation why I kept
up the work.”
Maha’s reflections on her choice to engage for Syrian refugees depict that she perceived
the two motives as conflicting:
“I know this is rude to say, I hate this kind of nationalities thing, but there is some kind of
connection. Like when I go to a house, a Syrian family, and when I visit them, they go like,
‘oh, you’re Syrian. Syrians are all for each other.’ You know, there is this kind of under-
standing. I’m very privileged that I study in [name of her university] but I sort of understand
also what you’re going through.”
Overall, the motivations for young, educated Syrians in Beirut to engage in the aid sector
for refugees from Syria are characterised by a duality of self-interest (related to personal
and professional benefit) and altruism (related to a binary form of identity construction,
which can be understood as a double-layered, at times conflicting form of both Syrian
and global citizenship). The upcoming paragraph assesses how the engagements can be
seen as a form of active citizenship based on these findings.
3.2. The Engagements as Forms of Active Citizenship
The description of the interviewees’ motivations to engage mirrors two ways of under-
standing voluntary engagement as ‘unpaid labour’ and ‘serious leisure’, following Roch-
ester, Ellis Paine and Howlett (2010). The authors have however suggested a third way of
understanding volunteering, namely as ‘activism’. This idea leads us back to the concept
of active citizenship as political practice.
In fact, most interviewees stayed clear of viewing their engagement as political. Only
very few respondents candidly linked their engagement in the aid sector to a political
stance. Therefore, it is insightful to take the theoretical input by Kenny et al. (2015) into
account, who frame active citizenship as obligation and civil commitment. It has been
stated earlier that it is typical for this form of active citizenship to “avoid confrontation
and ‘things political’” (79). Mariam interpreted engagements in the aid sector along these
lines when she said, “these are just Syrians who think they want to help the others, who
are better-off than the others, and they think it is their responsibility to help. It’s not about
political issues.” When looking back at what motivated the research respondents to en-
gage, many indeed expressed this sense of horizontal citizenship obligation to help fellow
Syrians. This affirms the assumption that horizontal citizenship ties become especially
