Annual Report 2020
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Annual Report 2020 1 2 The Orient-Institut Beirut (OIB) is an independent academic research institute, part of the Max Weber Foundation and mainly funded through the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Germany. It conducts interdisciplinary research on the Arab world and the region of the Middle East and North Africa at large. Its research community comprises long-term research associates and short-term visiting fellows from all over the world, who represent the major disciplines of the humanities and social sciences, including Islamic and Arab studies, history and anthropology of West Asia, as well as sociology and political sciences. The OIB is a long-standing partner of academic institutions in Lebanon and the region at large. It aims to foster academic relations across the MENA region and increasingly conducts its research in transregional perspectives. One of the great academic treasures of the OIB is its public research library, which holds important collections of books, journals and newspapers. It comprises around 130.000 volumes relating to Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies in the broad sense. The OIB publishes two major book series and additional titles through extra series. The institute engages with a larger academic community through regular research seminars, lecture series, international conferences and workshops. Local and international partnerships are crucial in designing and funding the institute's projects. In particular, the OIB is at the forefront of facilitating research collab ora tions between institutions in the Arab world and institutions in Germany and Europe. It thereby seeks to encourage innovative academic perspectives on the region. 3 OIB RENOVATION AFTER BLAST 2 3 Contents OIB in numbers 6 Director's Address 8 Research Profile 14 RESEARCH 18 HUMANS & OTHER HUMANS 20 HUMANS & THE ENVIRONMENT 42 HUMANS & THE DIVINE 54 HUMANS & THEIR PRODUCTIONS 64 Cooperations & Third-party Funding 88 RESEARCHERS 90 4 PUBLICATIONS 110 OIB Publications 112 Publications of the Researchers 119 EVENTS 124 Visit of foreign minister Heiko Maas 126 Conference Reports 129 Public Research Seminars 140 Internal Colloquia 142 Presentations & Moderations 146 LIBRARY 150 TEAM 154 INTERNS 156 SCIENTIFIC BOARD 157 Index 158 Imprint 160 5 OIB in numbers RESEARCH 30 RESEARCH PROJECTS SUPPORT scheduled/implemented 9/8 POSTDOCTORAL VISITING FELLOWS 10/8 DOCTORAL VISITING FELLOWS 4/4 RESEARCH RELIEF FELLOWS 6/1 HANS-ROBERT ROEMER FELLOWS 9/5 INTERNS PUBLICATIONS 3 INSTITUTE 32 RESEARCHERS LIBRARY > 140.000 VOLUMES 6 OIB in numbers EVENTS scheduled/implemented OIB 2020 5/2 CONFERENCES 8/2 WORKSHOPS 2/0 ROUND TABLES / PANEL DISCUSSIONS 1/0 LECTURE SERIES 7 PUBLIC TALKS 17 COLLOQUIA SOCIAL MEDIA 5.003 FACEBOOK ABBONEMENTS 220 INSTAGRAM ABBONEMENTS 7 Director's Address BIRGIT SCHÄBLER 8 Director's Address BIRGIT SCHÄBLER Writing this address and looking back at the year 2020 I find myself thinking back much further in time, back to the year 1991 when I came to Beirut for the very first time. Seven hours of electricity, sometimes less, was the normality back then, and one had to exploit daylight and plan showers accordingly. The city was still in ruins in most places, but everyday life went on as it had during the war, as people recounted. Not far from me, a flower shop, still there today, sold nice bouquets. The OIB's library was open for occasional visitors. Italian director of the library Roncaglia was in and we talked frequently. Madame Kanaan issued my library card. But the OIB director and the researchers had moved to Istanbul, the Institute was still officially closed. Now, in early spring 2021, electricity cuts are severe, again, with only six to seven hours of electricity in many places. There is the smell of burning tires and garbage in the air, as people get desperate and voice their frustration in the streets. And several of Beirut's oldest and most iconic quarters lie in shambles, destroyed by the third- largest non-nuclear explosion of the last 100 years worldwide, on August 4, 2020. More than 6000 people were wounded, many of them severely, around 200 were killed by the blast, and 300.000 became homeless. The OIB, which had survived the 15 years of civil war with but a few scratches, was heavily damaged, but luckily nobody was harmed. Those living close to the institute had their apartments damaged, too. So this year started much like the last year ended: in severe crisis mode. While the rest of the world has been and still is suffering under the Corona pandemic, which gained new life through nasty mutants forcing societies into ever new lock-downs the world over, locked-down Lebanon is aching under staggering daily numbers of infections, a high death rate and supply shortages in hospitals, several of which were hit in the explosion — all of this in addition to a multitude of crises. In fact there isn't a single sector of society which is not hit by crisis. In spring last year, when the country went into a well-heeded first lock-down, the number of deaths, compared to the rest of the world, was record low and the infection curve was close to South-Korea's. Now I know of half a dozen of COVID-19 deaths in my circles alone, and a number of friends contracted the virus. It has come very close to one's life. The situation had changed when in July the airport opened again and thousands of people from all over the world came to visit their families for the summer, as every year, fuelling infection rates, possibly with many strands of the virus. The expatriates' visits were badly needed, though, since half of the Lebanese citizens had fallen below the poverty line already in May 2020, according to the World Bank. 9 The local currency's value dropped by more than 75 percent in the black market, fuelling inflation. The banks withheld people's savings in Dollars and finally paid them out in Lira for a fraction of their worth. People lost billions in savings and by the begin- ning of 2021 official estimates say that some 75 percent of Lebanese nationals are in need of aid. They bitterly feel they are joining the more than 1 Million Syrian refugees living in the country, of whom 90 percent require humanitarian and cash assistance, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. On 30 January, the World Bank signed an agreement with the caretaker government for a loan of $246 million to provide cash assistance to some 800.000 of the poorest Lebanese. The economic situation, in fact a severe debt crisis, which came as a result of years of Ponzi-schemes between the banking sector, the Central Bank and the government, is dramatic and the downward spiral continues unabated. The dollar reserves of the Central Bank are dwindling rapidly and subsidies on gasoline, flour and medical supplies have already been cut down. There is a severe crisis of political legitimacy in the country. It had led to the unprece dented popular movement of October 2019 which, lasting more than three months, in turn had brought the government of PM Saad al-Hariri down who resigned on 29 October 2019 in response to the movement. The transitional technocratic gov- ernment under Hasan Diab, which included six women in important ministerial posts, managed the Corona-crisis successfully until summer 2020 but could not deliver the reforms demanded by the popular movement and European states alike. Hasan Diab resigned after the explosion, on August 10, 2020, and transformed from interim PM into caretaker PM. Lebanon's ambassador to Berlin was charged with forming a new government but gave up the daunting task in the face of unrelenting opposition and returned to Berlin. Saad al-Hariri was then, once again, charged with forming a government. On loggerheads with President Aoun, he could not deliver until now. Trust in the state is at an all-time low in Lebanon, and the erosion of state institutions is becoming ever more visible. Inflation devalues salaries severely and notoriously per- functory services disappear altogether. With no governance to speak of, policy turns into the policing of people through security forces. They are prone to become the face of the failing state, while their 130.000 individual members share the grievances and sufferings of the people at large. If security deteriorates, the old mechanisms of sectarian clientelism, which were the main target of the popular movement, will be strengthened and the political parties, which themovement had criticized, with their strong men and partisans will step in to fill the gap. Even the army, generally much respected in the country as one of the least partisan and most capable public institutions, has come under stress. Together with all other civil servants and people working in the private sector, if they managed to keep their jobs, soldiers today earn a fraction of what they did a year ago, many as little as the equivalent of $150 per month. At the same the prices of basic food-stuffs are rising continuously and shortages appear. 10 The burning garbage bins at the beginning of 2021 then might be very different harbingers than the burning tires of October 2019 — signaling the civil strife of old, not an attempt to enforce a general strike to bring forward change. But the popular movement, despite being weakened as large numbers of its bright young people left the country to study or work elsewhere, is still there, protesting peacefully and de- manding that the ruling triumvirate of president, speaker of parliament and designate prime minister step down to free the way for a younger generation. Address Director's More than half a year after the explosion the political class has proved unwilling and unable to form a new government desperately needed to implement necessary reforms in order to reach an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) — the first steps to unlocking more substantial foreign aid.