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Cover: conceived by the author inspired by Gérard Fromanger’s En Chine, à Hu-Xian (Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris) executed by Antoine Badaoui with photos by the author and BBC. Declaration I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the MPhil/PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others (in which case the extent of any work carried out jointly by me and any other person is clearly identified in it). The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without my prior written consent. I warrant that this authorization does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. I declare that my thesis consists of 97,844 words. List of Illustrations Chapter 1: P. 10 – Fig. 1 A Micro-Desalination Camp in Shatila, By the author / P.22 – Fig. 2 Sketch from the movie Roundabout Shatila, By Maher ABi Samra / Chapter 2: P. 58 – Fig. 1 Nada Sehnaoui’s Installation, Downtown Beirut, By Samer Nadim Karam, http: Bloggingbeirut.com / P.63 – Fig. 2 The LeBanese Sectarian Patchwork, by the author / P. 64 – Fig. 3 “Beirut… Have a Nice Day,” By the author / P. 67 - Figs. 4 & 5 Traffic Jam in Beirut and Reading a Newspaper, by Stavro Jabra, http: stravrotoons.com / P. 67 - Fig. 6 A Day at the Beach, from Le Mémorial du Liban – Chronicle of a War / Pp. 68 & 69 - Figs. 7 & 8 What are we going to have for dinner?, by AP Images / P. 73 – Figs. 9 & 10 The 1982-massacre mass grave, By the author / Ch. 4: P. 165 - Fig. 1 The All-Virile Fidāʾiyyīn, By Don McCullin, cover of Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries, by Rosemary Sayigh, Zed Press, London, 1979 / P. 166 – Fig. 2 Fatah Poster of the Battle of Karama, from the Palestine Poster Project Archives, http://www.palestineposterproject.org / Ch. 5: P. 210 – Fig 1 The intrepid manage to surf the pororoca, By Serginho Laus / P. 233 – Fig. 2 Fermata: Too Long a Halt?, By Antoine Badaoui / P. 242 – The Gaza Building: Façade and Interior, by the author / P. 255 – The Memories Museum in Shatila, by the author / Ch. 6 – P. 267 - Fig. 1 Pigeons over Shatila, by the author / Ch. 7 – P. 277 - Fig. 1 Looking back at the City, Madddafakazzzz!, screenshot from the movie Welcome to Shatila, By Raad Raad / P. 289 – Fig. 2 Nada Sehnaoui’s Instalation, Zaytouna Bay, courtesy By Nada Sehnaoui, from Al-AkhBar newspaper. Abstract Non-Cockfights: On Doing/Undoing Gender in Shatila, Lebanon The thesis investigates the extent to which acting as a male provider remains an open avenue for coming of age and displaying gender belonging for the shabāb (lads) of the Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon. The literature on Palestinians prior to 1948 suggests that a man would come of age by marrying at the appropriate age and bearing a son. For the Palestinian diaspora in Lebanon, and throughout the 1970s, acting as a fidāʾī (fighter) worked as an alternative mechanism for coming of age and displaying gender belonging. Accordingly, the central question of this thesis is how the shabāb today come of age and display their gender belonging, when on the one hand, Lebanese legislation, through forms of institutional violence, bars their free access to the labour market, forcing them to postpone marriage plans, and on the other hand, participation in the Palestinian Resistance Movement, at least in its military version, is not an option anymore. Through a plethora of investigative techniques – participant observation, questionnaires, focus groups, and open-ended interviews – I have registered the differences between the fidāʾiyyīn and their offspring in their coming of age and gender display. While the fidāʾiyyīn bore pure agency – understood as resistance to domination – and displayed their maturity through the fight to return to their homeland, their offspring have a far more nuanced relation to Palestine and articulate their coming of age and gender belonging in different ways, such as building a house and getting married. Effectively, by observing how the shabāb do their gender, it is not only the full historicity and changeability in time and space of masculinity that come to the fore, but also the scholarly concepts of agency and gender that can be transformed and undone. The tendency in studies of the Middle East to define gender strictly in terms of power and relations of domination fails to grasp the experiences of those, like the Shatila shabāb, with very limited access to power. It is not that the shabāb are emasculated, but rather that defining agency only in terms of resistance to domination and gender in terms of relations of power alone is rather restrictive. Throughout my fieldwork, I have also become acutely aware of anti- state forces at play in Shatila. Accordingly, this study portrays the (dangerous) liaisons between gender and agency as concepts and state machines. Thus, I reflect on what happens to gender (and agency) when state effects organizing and attempting to solidify a sex-gender system at the local level are of limited purchase. Ultimately, this ethnography points to an economics, a politics, a citizenship and sexes-and-genders of another kind, beyond the state. Obsessed, bewildered By the shipwreck Of the singular We have chosen the meaning Of being numerous. George Oppen Of Being Numerous Table of Contents Abstract 4 Anti- and Acknowledgments 9 1. Thinking through Water – The Case for a Composite Image of Shatila 15 From the Ethnographer’s Fieldnotes – The Disorder of Things 15 From the Anthropologist’s Desktop – Framing the Field is not Taming the Field 33 All that is Solid Melts into Water – Taming Leviathan and the Bare King 41 (En)gendering/Endangering Knowledge: Impurity, Danger and the “Gift” of Gender 49 Les Enfants de l’Apatrie 52 2. Submerging – Under Siege 58 Under Siege 59 The Map is not the Territory 62 History is not the Event 71 Mourning Academic Power 81 “Palestinian-Becoming,” “Gender” and Power 85 3. Drowning by Numbers and Legislation – Statistics and (Non)State-Making in Shatila 92 Work Stories: Plus Ça Change, Plus C’est la Même Chose 1 93 Ahmad’s Family 93 The Abu Sahar Family 97 The Abu Ubaida Family 99 The Abu Walid Family 102 A History of Work: Plus Ça Change, Plus C’est la Même Chose 2 105 Averting Drowning by Numbers and Legislation 126 Exceptionalism is not the Exception 132 Governance beyond the State: Plus C’est la Même Chose, Plus Ça Change 134 4. Swirling & Twirling – The Fidāʾiyyīn’s Heroism and the Shabāb’s Burden 139 Some Romance 139 A Man’s Gotta Do What a Man’s Gotta Do 140 Gender Theories: A Gendered Anthropology (or Theorizing Power) 142 Bodies that Matter: The Fidāʾiyyīn’s Heroism 146 Undoing Gender: The Shabāb’s Burden 167 We, the Victorians (and Some Arabic) 195 A Soliloquy 200 5. Pororoca – Thinking through Music: Fidāʾiyyīn and Shabāb Talk (Sometimes) Past Each Other 210 Lords of the Palestinian Marches 222 Fermata 233 Palestinian Rhapsody 239 We Play the Beat (and Some Palestinian Arabic) 256 6. Re-Emerging – Non-Cockfights 261 Gender Troubles 262 Non-Cockfights 267 Anti-State, Non-Power and Card Games 273 7. Resurfacing – The Anti-Love of Empire 277 Welcome to Shatila, Maddafakazzzz! 277 Impurity and Danger or Queering Power 280 Sex and the Citizen 285 The Anti-Love of Empire 289 References 293 Annex To Shatilans, including Rosemary Anti and Acknowledgments As the concept of the “anti” often characterizes my reasoning in the following pages, I want to make use of it at the very beginning of this study for an anti-acknowledgement: to the United Kingdom Border Agency. After I lived in the Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp in the surroundings of Beirut for one year, my standing towards the Agency witnessed a dramatic shift, and the treatment reserved for me changed likewise. When I applied for a visa to return to London in order to continue my doctoral work, my passport was held at the British High Commission in Beirut for one month. One year later, when I applied to extend my residence visa, this time in Rio de Janeiro, my application was turned down twice – in one instance, without any legal basis, as it was later revealed – and, what is more, the valid visa in my passport was cancelled. I would certainly have enjoyed and profited from my UK experience much more had I been treated differently – let us say, as a legitimate student, trying to pursue higher education in the UK (which, incidentally, happened to be my status). Certainly it is discouraging for any prospective overseas student to consider pursuing higher studies in the country, knowing that she may have her movements severely curtailed, for what seems to me casuistry. Anyway, as academic life does not thrive on discord only, I also have the pleasure to name a number of people without whose help this research would simply not have been possible. Prominently among those, the Shatila shabāb (lads) and fidāʾiyyīn (fighters) whose biographies populate the following pages. In the case of the shabāb, after they gave me what they describe as “a hard time” – the special treatment they reserve for researchers (and others), in an effort to make the latter realize the camp is not just there to fulfil their academic ambitions or other interests –, they spared no effort to make me belong (as is duly discussed in one of my chapters).