ABSTRACT
This chapter synthesizes and interprets the data from life history accounts. It documents the ingenious ways that cultural repertoires are used and shows how individual lives illustrate the ways larger social, political and economic forces were actually enacted in an era of rapid social change. Conflict, marginality and deviance are important themes in this research. A new social type of cultural broker is identified, the ‘Mukhadram /Collagist’, an individual who relates to larger trends by combining diverse cultural elements and opportunities to produce new roles and cultural forms. It is also shown how, through education, the al-Meshrif family maintained their position in spite of radical state socialist policies. Social change is also articulated through inter-generational conflict. The professional qualifications and political affiliations to the Ba’th Party by the al-shabab (young men) have created conflict, but these young men are gradually assuming leadership roles in the local village and the region. The chapter also illustrates how these men and women acted, in their own trivial or important ways, to influence historical structures and societal transformations. With its emphasis on questions of continuity and change, it illuminates a slice of the social history of rural Syria, particularly on the upper Euphrates.
