Visualizing Inequality: The Spatial Politics of Revolution Depicted in Syrian Television Drama

Space has played a central and largely overlooked role in the Syrian conflict during the past eight years. A tension surrounds the organization of urban space and its impact on cultural identity, inequality, and political mobilization. Spatial politics represent a looming threat that is implicit in the project of ISIS, an international terrorist organization that seeks to appropriate the geographical area of al-Sham (Greater Syria) to create a transnational Caliphate. It also appears in the ‘development proposals’ of the Syrian government, which capitalize on a humanitarian crisis to expropriate forcibly displaced citizens of their land and properties.1 This article analyzes how Syrian television drama is not only an important field of cultural expression and a site of contestation but also reveals the many socio-economic spatial tensions underlying the 2011 Revolution and its aftermath. The latter aspect is demonstrated through a visual and textual analysis of two television serials that depict the ‘ashwa’iyat,2 [arbitrary informal settlements of Damascus]. The first show, al-Intizar, (2006) was aired before the Syrian conflict. The second, Zawal (2016) was aired as the political turmoil in Syria unfolded. This comparative analysis illustrates how the organization of urban space has impacted the dynamics of the Syrian Revolution and its aftermath, and how portrayals of urban and shantytown dramas portrayed the spatial inequalities of Damascus before and during the conflict.