| Summary/Abstract |
From Syria’s independence to the eve of the civil war in 2011, Kurds in Syria were subjected to state ethno-exclusion, economic and socio-political marginalization, impacting on their freedom and profoundly altering the demography of their region. The majority became stateless and sank into severe poverty, having to work illegally on their own land and participate in informal cross-border trade for their basic needs. This article examines this cross-border trade and its impact on interaction between Kurds in Syria and those in Turkey, arguing that it has not only been a socio-economic resource for marginalized Syrian Kurds but that these interactions have contributed to a broader social process of Kurdish political mobilization, which resulted in socio-political trajectories that became evident just before Syria’s civil war.
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