Migrant Worker Lifeworlds of Beirut Sumayya Kassamali Submitted In
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! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Migrant Worker Lifeworlds! of Beirut Sumayya Kassamali! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School! of Arts and Sciences ! ! Columbia University 2017 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! © 2017 Sumayya Kassamali All rights! reserved ! ABSTRACT Migrant Worker Lifeworlds! of Beirut ! Sumayya Kassamali ! A country of approximately 4 million citizens, Lebanon is home to over half a million Asian and black African migrant workers concentrated in its capital city of Beirut. An estimated one quarter of Lebanese households employ a live-in female migrant domestic worker on a full time basis. Over the last decade, many of these women have fled domestic confinement to enter Lebanon’s informal labour market, and have recently been joined by hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees fleeing war across the country’s eastern border. This dissertation examines the social worlds of these migrant workers. It demonstrates that non-Arab migrant workers in Beirut are not simply temporary workers, but constitute a specific subject category structured by socioeconomic relations that determine the possibility of their life in the city. Specifically, it argues that migrant workers in Beirut are subjects denied recognition, and who therefore lie outside the nation-state, while having forged an urban belonging inside the city. I demonstrate this by examining migrant workers’ interactions with the joint nexus of citizen-state authority, their experiences of time in both labour and rest, their modes of receiving address and inhabiting speech in the Arabic language, and their intimate and collective relations in the city. Together with growing numbers of male Syrian refugees, migrant workers in Beirut have created an urban underground that has transformed both what and who it means to live in the city today. This dissertation offers an ethnographic map of these transformations. ! ! Table of Contents ! Acknowledgments ii Transliteration and Transcription vi Preface viii ! ! !Introduction: Who is the Middle East? 1 !Chapter One: The Recognition of Foreigners 45 !Chapter Two: The Time of Exhaustion 85 !Chapter Three: The Language of Command 118 !Interlude: The Language of Fieldwork 159 !Chapter Four: The City of Exiles ! Part I 162 ! Part II 199 !Epilogue: Dreams of Freedom 230 Works Cited 234 !i Acknowledgments ! This dissertation is all people; only the surrounding words are mine. Aarti Sethi has been the greatest gift of this PhD. It is an unreal blessing and an even greater joy that the person I have spent the last seven years building a home with happens to also be the most alive thinker, the most exacting scholar, the most delightful partner-in-crime, and the most feminist spirit I know. Hers is the gift of flight, and she gives it so freely. Natacha Nsabimana has been the rock, the smooth sounds, the complete clarity that we were going to get every single thing done and still live with pleasure, and she remains a model of how to do it. Firat Kurt is like no other, and it is he who showed me that scholarly genius and mad laughter can always come together. Tzu-Chi Ou is the most thoughtful one of all of us, and Seung-Cheol Lee completes our orphans Christmas. Amiel Melnick taught me so much about Anthropology and America both, and her presence has always been full of my favourite things about being a graduate student in New York. Soo-Young Kim keeps us sane, and we would be lost without her knowledge of the handbook. Clare Casey thinks like no one else, radiant and brilliant, and I am excited to be in a world with her. This amazing cohort is the reason I made it. ! My advisor, Nadia Abu el-Haj, has made me a a sharper thinker, a better asker of questions, and a more careful social scientist. Brinkley Messick has insisted from the very beginning that he believes in my abilities, and all throughout he repeated his faith that I will produce interesting work. Claudio Lomnitz has given freely and openly, wandering with me down new possibilities of argument, always kind enough to check in when I disappear. My entire committee never lost faith in me after my Iraq project ended, and for this I remain grateful. Thank you also to Robin D. G. Kelley (a long-time inspiration) and Neferti Tadiar for serving as my external readers. Rosalind Morris has been a singular teacher in all my time at Columbia. At the most vulnerable moment she turned to me in generosity, unsolicited and unqualified. More than anyone else, it is she who has made me want to live inside the academy and its language. In my last year, Naor Ben-Yehoyada joined the department and opened his door, and it is conversations with him that helped me keep writing. Partha Chatterjee, in whose company I will !ii always be proud to say I was present for the founding of the Last International, has given so generously to us that it is under his roof I find myself writing these words. I arrived to both Anthropology and Columbia University thanks to Amira Mittermaier, who, in the circumstances under which we met, showed me first the warmth of a friend and then the exhilaration of a good teacher. As if that was not enough, she then invited me into her fieldsite, and left me enamoured of the discipline. I remain in debt to this gift. Seemi Ghazi, all the way since I was a teenager at UBC, has been the mentor who became friend; the dreamer who breathes song into speech. ! In my time at Columbia, major thanks are due to Madiha Tahir (neighbour, comrade, sister), who is a presence so fierce and so beautiful I am regularly in awe; Naeem Mohaiemen, with whom I have a rare bond that will always be full of words and deep affection; Fatima Mojaddedi, whose sharp wit and love for writing are both things to aspire to; Darryl Li, whose insights about politics, the Middle East, and the academy have helped shape my thought; Mark Drury, whose exchange of stories and citations over the years has left me smarter; George Bajalia, whose sensibilities make both our discipline and our region better; Elliot Ross, whose compassion and curiosity about the world always make me want to be a better version of myself; Sameen Gauhar, who I was so happy to meet in this city; Abhishek Kaicker, who is simply the best; as well as Tori Gross, Sandipto Dasgupta, Matt Swagler, Parul Sehgal, Fernando Montero, Deniz Duruiz, Julia Fierman, Suresh Naidu, Sofia Shank, Manan Ahmed Asif, and everyone who ever passed through Apartment 67. Poulomi Saha deserves every accolade possible for being a good sport, and I am so glad I know her. Marilyn Astwood and Juana Cabrera not only make the Department of Anthropology function, but also made its office the most laughter-filled place on campus. Andréa Schmidt is the friend I somehow knew long before we met. It is strange to even imagine a time before her, but perfect to know that all the rest of time will have her in it. Leila Pourtavaf keeps me laughing, gives me food and shelter, and is covered in glitter — could there be a better way to be in grad school? Kamal Arora is home, and I am so happy to have spent the last twelve years conspiring with her, starting in the city we made ours. Nassim Elbardouh is such a delight that between Vancouver and Beirut we never miss a beat and are only left wanting more. Amita Bhatia first showed me how to love Rekha, and then the great pleasure of patience. !iii Esmat Elhalaby is the future, absurdly smart and urgently kind, and I am so happy to be on his side. Thank you also to Cecily Nicholson, Asif Tejani, and Zahra Ladak, for what they taught me. My debt to Jon Elmer is so enormous that words defy it. Every single one of my ethical and political commitments has been influenced and inspired by him. ! In Amman, Jordan and Najaf, Iraq, fieldwork that has barely left a trace in this dissertation, I am grateful to Lucine Taminian, Hayder el-Khoei, and especially Sami and Souad Rasouli. The Wenner-Gren Foundation and the SSRC not only funded my fieldwork but also gave me the flexibility needed for me to make the transition from Iraq to Lebanon and complete this work. There would be no Beirut without Hana Sleiman. I would never have survived (and then loved) that city were it not for her patience, her ferocity, and a generosity so unthinking she does not even realize how exceptional and unique it is. Lamia Moghnieh is my disciplinary comrade, the feeling of forever on the beach and at Bedivere, the one that makes me want my Arabic to be worthy of her respect. Cynthia Kreichati is the most considerate, the most wide-reading, the best possible companion on a road trip (or in Athens), the person to have on your side in every fight. Cynthia, Hana, and Lamia also deserve exceptional thanks for being so patient with my dozens of questions about Arabic and Lebanon over the last year of writing this dissertation. Everyone should be so lucky as to receive the kind of welcome to their fieldsite that Maya Mikdashi gave me to Beirut. She is a wonderful anthropologist of Lebanon but she taught me most about myself, and her humour, her coffee, and her warmth infused the city for me. It is appropriate that Mansour Aziz lives in Beirut because he is the sunlight, more vibrant than every room and any rules, driving us mad with his beauty.