ABSTRACT
The Syrian revolution that began in 2011 as an unexpected and creative uprising against an authoritarian government quickly morphed into an incredibly destructive, disintegrating force. The image of revolutionary crowds was replaced with crowds of refugees in flight. In many ways crowd behavior took on the specific characteristics of Syrian culture and society, radicalizing latent and often unconscious social divisions and antagonisms. Most theory since the latter nineteenth century has argued implicitly if not explicitly that crowds are an intermediary or liminal form between masses and political subjects in groups. Whereas masses are pre-political gatherings of people with no conscious purpose, crowds are the transformation of these gatherings into groups with particular cultural meanings. Crowds in Syria in 2011 partook in a struggle to undo the political field. They massed in towns and city centers and relied on new social technology to befriend strangers and to create new networks beyond their kinship ties for political purposes.
