ABSTRACT
Since foreign-educated persons spent considerable time abroad and gained extensive knowledge, experiences, and contacts across the globe their logics of action are very complex: Their ‘transnationality’ opens up new opportunities, not only for them but also for the persons and institutions they interact with. This chapter investigates how foreign-trained Syrians and their surroundings have been using these opportunities – or failing to do so – both before and during the Syrian uprising. It will show that Syrian returnees had good chances of gaining influence in their home country’s as well as their destination country’s politics but this did not mean they played a decisive role in all political developments: Their in-between-ness comes also with specific uncertainties and drawbacks, which were made visible and reinforced by the unpredictability of the ‘Arab Spring’.
