“The Alternative to One is Not Many:” Theorizing Lebanese Sectarianism through Partial Connections
Rosenbaum, Isabel W.
2021
- In this thesis, I apply Marilyn Strathern’s theory of partial connections (2001) and Gal and Irvine’s work on fractals (2000; 2019) to Lebanese sectarianism. I show how applying an analytical framework rooted in partial connections and fractals to Lebanon’s sectarian landscape creates alternative ways to think about the roles of violence, place, and space in the formation of identities and politics. ... read moreI first show how applying theories of fractal recursivity and partial connections to understandings of violence and place in post-War Beirut elucidates the potential of structures and infrastructures as sites for the formation and circuiting together of relations, creating potential for social shifts and changes within those spaces and among the communities who interact with them. I then discuss how the 2019 thawra challenged and reshaped the politics of space and inclusion within Downtown Beirut, while also highlighting how a theory of partial connections can be used to better understand why and how cracks in solidarity movements emerge and gain traction. Finally, I show how the 2020 port explosion, through the scale and intensity of its violence, revealed and emphasized that the most salient division in contemporary Lebanon are not the ones between sectarian communities and parties, but the divide between the state and the people, a relationship that has been accentuated in the months of continuous crises since August 2020. A partially-connected approach, in which “the alternative to one is not many” (Haraway 2016, 52), allows for an understanding of individual and group political-social identities in which all parts of identity are present, but may exceed each other in different spaces and times.read less
- ID:
- qr46rd96k
- To Cite:
- TARC Citation Guide EndNote
- Usage:
- Detailed Rights
