Everyday sectarianism in urban Lebanon : infrastructures, public services, and power / Joanne Randa Nucho.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nucho, Joanne, 1979- author.

Series:

Princeton studies in culture and technology

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Civil society--Lebanon.

Civil society.

Religion and civil society--Lebanon.

Religion and civil society.

Municipal services--Political aspects--Lebanon.

Municipal services.

Public welfare--Political aspects--Lebanon.

Public welfare.

Public welfare--Religious aspects.

Infrastructure (Economics)--Lebanon.

Infrastructure (Economics).

Municipal services--Political aspects.

Politics and government.

Public welfare--Political aspects.

Lebanon--Politics and government.

Lebanon.

Physical Description:

xv, 167 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2016]

Summary:

What causes violent conflicts around the Middle East? All too often, the answer is sectarianism-popularly viewed as a timeless and intractable force that leads religious groups to conflict. In Everyday Sectarianism in Urban Lebanon, Joanne Randa Nucho shows how wrong this perspective can be. Through in-depth research with local governments, NGOs, and political parties in Beirut, she demonstrates how sectarianism is actually recalibrated on a daily basis through the provision of essential services and infrastructures, such as electricity, medical care, credit, and the planning of bridges and roads. Taking readers to a working-class, predominantly Armenian suburb in northeast Beirut called Bourj Hammoud, Nucho conducts extensive interviews and observations in medical clinics, social service centers, shops, banking coops, and municipal offices. She explores how group and individual access to services depends on making claims to membership in the dominant sectarian community, and she examines how sectarianism is not just tied to ethnoreligious identity but also class, gender, and geography. Life in Bourj Hammoud makes visible a broader pattern in which the relationships that develop while procuring basic need's become a way for people to see themselves as part of the greater public. Illustrating how sectarianism in Lebanon is not simply about religious identity, as is commonly thought, Everyday Sectarianism in Urban Lebanon offers a new look at how everyday social exchanges define and redefine communities and conflicts. Book jacket.

Contents:

Chapter 1 All That Endures from Past to Present 30

Temporality, Sectarianism, and a "Return" to Wartime in Lebanon

Chapter 2 Permanently Temporary 51

Constructing "Armenianness" through Informal Property Regimes

Chapter 3 Building the Networks 73

NGOs, Gender, and "Community"

Chapter 4 From Shirkets to Bankas 94

Credit, Lending, and the Narrowing of Networks

Chapter 5 The Eyes of Odars 108

City-to-City Collaborations and Transnational Reach.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 136-164) and index.

ISBN:

9780691168968

0691168962

9780691168975

0691168970

OCLC:

965201574