Researcher | Writer | Cat wrangler Research director @SynapsNetwork. Learning about water, agriculture, human mobility
Beirut, Lebanon
Joined January 2012
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Jordan’s environmental crisis is often framed as a simple case of scarcity: too many people, too little water.
It is that, but it’s also more: It’s privatization, profit, state decay.
My latest tells this story, and asks what we all can learn from it
synaps.network/en/post/Jorda…
Alex Simon retweeted
Mental health concerns now surface across everyday life in Syria, from traumatized children to unemployed fathers avoiding friends because they cannot afford cafés or restaurants.
By Alex Simon, Lina Ghoutouk, Malak Shanawani and Samar Alumari.
syriauntold.com/2026/10/14/t…
In Syria, mental health practitioners often lament how social stigma prevents Syrians from getting the help they need.
There's surely truth in this, especially in more conservative circles.
And yet, in our research, my @SynapsNetwork colleagues and I often saw the opposite 🧵
None of which is to downplay the extraordinary ordeal Syrians have endured, nor the scale of the crisis they face today.
But I found it helpful to grasp that these extraordinary circumstances are mixed in with universal ones.
There's a wealth of experience to draw upon in confronting the challenges Syrians face today, and much the rest of us can learn from how they do so.
synaps.network/en/post/Syria…
This map is almost identical to one already produced by @TheSyriaReport, down to the colors & legend. SR is not credited on the map, just at the end of a long thread.
This map cites the author's blog as the source, whereas SR cites the Syrian Petroleum Company.
Alex Simon retweeted
"One of" or "The" source. @TheSyriaReport
One of the main sources for creating this map is @TheSyriaReport, check out the great work done by @jihadyazigi and his team
Alex Simon retweeted
#Interview | 'Knowledge must now serve Syrians': Seven years of fieldwork from inside Syria
Read @ivapleuvoir's full interview with @Alexgsimon and @Linaagho below
today.lorientlejour.com/arti…
Once upon a time, European states were acutely concerned about Syrians' property rights.
In 2018, the Assad regime ramped up its use of new legal frameworks to expropriate swathes of real estate around Damascus under the banner of urban revival. 🧵
The resulting spectacle sums up the state of Western Syria policy: As EU states dispatch delegations to plot the return of refugees with their counterparts in Damascus, the capital is ringed by developments that threaten new, permanent rounds of dispossession and displacement.
Syrians, meanwhile, are using their country's newly opened public space to resist. More on this in my latest:
peoplesplanet.substack.com/p…
In June 2025, I sat down to write the conclusion to "Syrians in the Shadow of War."
The goal was to link the book's core subject matter—32 essays produced in the seven years before Bashar al-Assad's fall—with the first six months of Syria's transition. 🧵
I hope the text did justice to all that richness and messiness. If nothing else, it reflects one way in which Syria has surely changed for the better: The country is more open than it has been in decades, allowing me to conduct the fieldwork that formed the basis of this text.
With big thanks to to @FreddyDeknatel for publishing this adaptation in @hiddencitiesmag
substack.com/home/post/p-213…
