Mobilizing for Syria’s Disappeared: Survivor-Led Movements, Emotions, and Transitional Justice

Abstract The fall of the Assad regime and the opening of its prisons in December 2024 brought the issue of the disappeared, and the scale and horror of Assad’s repression, to unprecedented international attention, while survivors and family associations have long mobilized for Syria’s disappeared. This article seeks to analyse the affective dimensions of this transnational mobilization prior to the fall of Assad. It asks: what is the role of emotions for survivors’ mobilization for justice and truth, and what are the implications for a victim-centred approach in the field of transitional justice? To address these questions, this article brings into conversation critical transitional justice scholarship with the emotional turn in studies of international relations and social movements. It draws from qualitative interviews and observation conducted with members of survivor-led associations and Syrian and international non-governmental organizations between 2018 and 2023, in Germany, Lebanon, and online. This article shows how the emergence of Syrian, transnational survivor-led movements relied upon the constitution of emotional communities: communities of meaning and affection based on strong emotional ties, emotion labour, and practices of care. It argues that an affective approach, that is, an approach that accounts for the social and political significance of survivors’ emotions to transitional justice, is central to a victim-centred approach. An affective approach recognizes how diverse emotions act as catalysts for victim mobilization, how survivor-led movements play a key role in transforming isolating emotions and sustaining mobilization across time and space, and how transitional justice efforts both build upon and regulate survivors’ emotions.