The research project is located in the field of peace and conflict studies. It combines insights from studies on the transnational diffusion (Buhaug/Gleditsch 2008; Checkel 2013), on cross-border networks of conflicts (Pugh et al. 2004; Leenders 2007) as well as on local orders within wars (Arjona 2015; Staniland 2012; Wood 2008) to develop a conceptual framework for the study of local orders in the neighbourhood of wars. The three analytical dimensions "violent control & regulation," "identity & mobilisation," and "material reproduction" are broad enough to incorporate the most crucial political, social and economic processes affecting the "secondary theaters of war." This conceptual framework will guide the detailed empirical case studies in Northern Jordanian cities. Against this background, the end results of the project will hopefully not only speak to students of the Syrian war and local politics in the Middle East, but will also be of interest to the wider peace and conflict studies community. The project will undertake substantial qualitative research in the three Northern Jordanian cities of Irbid, Mafraq and Ramtha which have all been strongly affected by the Syrian war. It is inspired by the recent "local turn" in peace and conflict studies (MacGinty/Richmond 2013) and will employ ethnographic methods in two separate field research stays (Schatz 2009; Schlichte 2013). The first field research aims at "mapping" the respective local orders along the three analytical dimensions; this will be done by interviewing representatives of local status groups, i.e. governorate/city administration, opposition activists, social elites, traders as well as incoming Syrians. The second field research will build on these insights and hold focus group discussions with selected "members" of different status group in order to be able to understand the (potentially competing) narratives and ways of making sense of the local transformations. Together, this thick qualitative research design should allow to both see general, over-arching patterns of local transformation as well as specificities of the individual cases.