CivilSociety Review CivilSociety Review Issue 1 - January, 2015 Revisiting Inequalities in Lebanon, The case of the “Syrian refugee crisis” and gender dynamics In this issue: Five new papers in the theme: Rethinking gender equality, relations and strategies in Lebanon Post-war Lebanon and the influence of international financial institutions: a “merchant republic” The everyday experience of humanitarian- ism in Akkar villages and more CivilSociety Review CivilSociety Review Issue 1 - January, 2015 Revisiting Inequalities in Lebanon, The case of the “Syrian refugee crisis” and gender dynamics Published by Lebanon Support, Beirut, January 2015. Editorial team: Marie-Noëlle AbiYaghi, Bassem Chit, Léa Yammine. Guest gender editor: Ghassan Makarem. Lebanon Support dedicates this project to the memory of Bassem Chit. Picture on cover by Bassem Chit. Designed by Léa Yammine Printed at Dots53, Beirut, January 2015. The views expressed in this publication are solely those of the author(s), and do not necessarily reflect the views of Lebanon Support, nor its partners. Lebanon Support © 2015 all rights reserved. Acknowledgements Lebanon Support acknowledges the inputs at various stages of the development of this first issue of the “Civil Society Review” of the following scholars, experts and activists: Ziad Abdel Samad, Leila el-Ali, Sara Abou Ghazel, Myriam Catusse, Mahdi Charafeddine, Azza Charara-Baydoun, Fadia Dahshe, Rodolph Gebrael, Vincent Geisser, Raghida Ghamlouch, Ghada Jabbour, Deema Kaedbey, Elisabeth Longuenesse, Youmna Makhlouf, Roula Masri, Charbel Maydaa, Maya Mikdashi, Lamia Moghnieh, Joelle Moufarrej, Nour Nasr, Caroline Succar. About the Civil Society Review Lebanon Support believes that a strong civil society is essential to bringing about an open and just society. Through its research programme and information and knowledge sharing platforms Lebanon Support focuses on supporting local and national civil society organizations, as well as informal campaigns and networks to gain, develop and share knowledge and expertise in order to enhance effectiveness of civil society work in Lebanon. The objective of the Civil Society Review is to bring civil society practitioners, experts and researchers together to develop and disseminate knowledge, as well as to innovate new tools and practices so as to strengthen Lebanon’s civil society sphere and voice. The Civil Society Review produces evidence-based research and analysis and disseminates findings and recommendations to promote civic engagement, shape policies, and stimulate debate within civil society spheres in Lebanon. In addition to Lebanon Support’s multi-disciplinary team, the Civil Society Review draws expertise from practitioners, experts, researchers and policy makers. 7 Table of contents Introduction p.8 Meet the authors p.10 Theme 1. Syrian Refugees in Lebanon p.12 Challenges of aid coordination in a complex crisis: An overview of funding policies and conditions regarding aid provision to Syrian refugees in Lebanon, Dalya Mitri p.15 The Everyday Experience of Humanitarianism in Akkar Villages, Estella Carpi p.27 Regional differences in the conditions of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, Guita Hourani and Sam Van Vliet p.39 Enhancing municipal capacities: from emergency response to planning, Marwa Boustani p.47 Theme 2. Gender Equity p.52 Feminisms in Lebanon: after proving loyalty to the “Nation”, will the “Body” rise within the “Arab Spring”?, Bernadette Daou p.55 Gender politics in Lebanon and the limits of legal reformism, Riwa Salameh p.69 From Public Space to Office Space: the professionalization/NGO- ization of the feminist movement associations in Lebanon and its impact on mobilization and achieving social change, Dalya Mitri p.87 “Masculinity-under-threat”: Sexual Rights Organizations and the Masculinist State in Lebanon, Anthony Rizk and Ghassan Makarem p.97 Transwomen’s Navigation of Arrest and Detention In Beirut: A Case Study, Ahmad J. Saleh and Adriana A. Qubaia p.109 Varia p.120 Post-war Lebanon and the influence of international financial institutions: a “merchant republic”, Hassan Sherry p.123 La méritocracie néolibérale contre l’égalité sociale? Analyse d’un dispositif de développement destiné aux étudiants libanais, Maissam Nimr p.131 About Lebanon Support and our programmes p.137 Introduction This first issue of the Civil Society Review reflects the core of Lebanon Support’s mission and man- date to create a space for reflection, collaboration and debate between scholarly research, expertise and activism in Lebanon. Its themes were informed by, if not imposed by, the current problematics that civil society actors have been facing in the past few years in Lebanon, and that are structuring their work. While we are aware of the fetishization of the concept of “civil society”, our approach seeks to introduce a critical and distanced reflection to its underlying contents and implications, and to consider it as a social and political construct in the Lebanese context rather than a given. The issue is the result of two successive calls for contributions relevant to two of the most widely discussed questions within civil society work in Lebanon. The first call stemmed from the necessity to reflect on the Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon, which acted as a magnifying glass of the structural shortcomings of the Lebanese state. Beyond considering “Syrian refugees” as a mere “category”, the objective was to reflect on the crisis as part of the political, economic, social and security dynamics that affect the Lebanese society as a whole. Through the issue of Syrian refugees, it is also the mech- anisms of the Lebanese civil society and state that we seek to discuss and explore. The second call came from an increased attention articulated around gender rights mobilization and feminist organizations, from both scholars researching and reflecting on civil society in Lebanon, as well as activists struggling for the advancement of their causes and ideals. By tackling such issues through innovative and original evidence-based research and literature, Lebanon Support’s endeavour is to contribute to deconstruct social, economic, and political factors and structures fostering and sustaining gender inequality and gender motivated or based violence in its various forms and practices (discursive, physical, social, economic, psychological, among others). This is also a manner to reflect more generally on inequalities, discrimination and forms of exclusion that affect “minorities” in a society that is mainly characterized by patriarchal and social control structures. Indeed, since 2011, the Syrian refugee situation had been an accurate gauge of the challenges faced by the state in terms of autonomy and its “leadership” role regarding international donors’ policies and agendas. The crisis, that many agree to characterize as “unprecedented”, contributed to intro- duce to the humanitarian “market” new actors with specific political agendas (see for instance the paper by Dalya Mitri on this issue). It additionally brought back to the forefront of the public scene the ever-recurring debate on decentralization and municipal capacities (as the article by Marwa Boustany shows). While the crisis showed the great solidarity of the Lebanese host community with the Syrian refugees (it is unprecedented to have a country of 4 million inhabitants host one million refugees without being on the verge of a social rupture or war), it also shed light, with great urgency, on the philosophy and practices of humanitarian actors. These have, on the one hand, contributed to a quasi monopoly on the coordination efforts and have ostracized the local actors who undoubt- edly have a thorough knowledge of the local social fabric and context (as argued by Dalya Mitri); and on the other hand, have contributed, through a policy of “ethnicization”, to further deepen existing cleavages and tensions along ethnic or confessional lines. By refusing to address the “politics” behind their interventions, humanitarian actors contribute to the emergence of a “humanitarian orientalism” that behind the displayed neutrality tends to fuel tensions and conflicts (as demonstrated by Estella Carpi). Moreover, the politics of labelling refugees as such contributed to prevent humanitarian actors from grasping the extreme diversity of their social and political backgrounds, their personal trajectories, their livelihoods, or their integration to the Lebanese job market (as illustrated by Guita Hourani and Sam Van Vliet). The second theme was inspired by the questions posed by the transformations in the region in relation to gender and sexuality in the public space, from the question of sexual harassment to basic 9 civil rights. After revisiting the history of feminist movements and organizations in Lebanon since the nineteenth century, categorizing them in successive “waves” (Bernadette Daou’s contribution to this issue), their modes of actions are examined (Riwa Salameh’s reflexive perspective from an activ- ist point of view is enlightening in that regard). The issue of their current strategies and discourses is raised with a particular focus on mobilizing structures and the questionable impact of achieving social change (as argued in Dalya Mitri’s article). This thematic section also proposes a reflection on LGBT activism, questioning its mixed and sometimes conflictual relation with feminist organizations on one hand, and, on the other its contribution to the reinforcement of the dominant concept of “masculinity” (Anthony