“What’s friendship got to do with it?”: A participatory study of associational life, mobilization, and civic discourse in Lebanon

Thesis

This thesis explores themes of identity, belonging, and interpersonal trust as displayed within the local associational life of young adults in Lebanon. It further explores how the daily life observed within local, community-based associational spaces can help explain participant attitudes towards and engagement in national civil society initiatives. The thesis finds that participants discursively deconstruct hegemonic identity narratives (especially surrounding ‘sect’, ‘religion’, and ‘ethnicity’ or ‘nationality’) while simultaneously seeking deeper engagement with local communities, an engagement which entails some desire for religious and cultural ‘belonging’.

The thesis contributes to studies of associational life in the Middle East, drawing on theories of local cosmopolitanism and conviviality. It challenges ‘either / or’ approaches to understanding how MENA youth think about political engagement as individuals or as members of subnational communities. Drawing on the socio-political imagination of Lebanese youth displayed through place-making initiatives and discourse emerging from shared local spaces (commons), the thesis argues that participants seek to find space both for individual expression, which surpasses the restraints of communal boundaries, and to explore communal belonging, including cultural and religious heritage, while still engaging as ‘citizens of the state’ (rather than members of a sect) in the cosmopolitan, civic sphere.

The thesis fits into a larger body of work arguing that barriers to social cohesion in a society divided by ethnoreligious sect have less to do with sect or religion per se than with elitism and patronage networks that create an inescapable cycle of sect-based dependence. Building on this, the thesis contributes insights on the elitism of ‘secular’ dependency networks, in which individuals are encouraged to minimize religious or cultural belongings and the concrete political interests that come with these belongings.

Authors: Renne, FD

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-mjnea4dzb
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: sectarianism; youth; late capitalism; multiculturalism; sect; cosmopolitanism; place-making; social cohesion; globalisation; ethnicity