Borders, Boundaries and Identity Building in Lebanon

Borders, Boundaries and Identity Building in Lebanon

Friday, 18 May 2012 - 6:00pm to Saturday, 19 May 2012 - 5:30pm
Venue: 
68 Woodstock Road, Oxford, OX2 6JF, the Middle East Centre’s Library
Speaker(s): 
George Asseily (Chairman of CLS Board)
Michael Willis (Director of MEC)
Series: 
MEC Seminar

Friday 18th May - Middle East Centre Library 5pm-7pm 
Saturday 19th May - Dahrendorf Room 9.30am-4.30pm

Friday 18th May - Middle East Centre Library

5.00-5.30pm Welcome Speech: 
George Asseily (Chairman of CLS Board) and Michael Willis (Director of MEC)

5.30-7.00pm Plenary Conference: keynote speaker, Lord Michael Williams, former UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon (2008-2011) 
Dinner for participants: High Table at St Antony's College

Saturday 19th May - Dahrendorf Room

9.30-9.45am Introduction and organisation of the day 
George Asseily (Chairman of CLS Board)

Session 1: People at the margins (9.45-11.15) 
Chair: Daniel Meier (CLS-MEC) - Discussant: Eugene Rogan (MEC)

9.45-10.10 Saoud al-Mawla (Lebanese University) 
The Shia in South Lebanon: portraying suffering and group identity building.

10.10-10.30 Nicolas Puig (IRD - Paris/Beirut) 
Corssing the borders: an ethnography of "transactions". The Case of Palestinian Refugees in the North of Lebanon.

10.30-10.50 Dawn Chatty, Nisrine Mansour and Nasser Yassin (Oxford University) 
Statelessness and tribal identity on Lebanon's eastern borders

11.15-11.45 Coffee Break

Session 2: Wars and frontiers from limits to delineation (11.45am-1.00pm) 
Chair: Ahmed al-Shahi (MEC) - Discussant: Michael Kerr (King's College)

11.45-12.10 Daniel Meier (CLS -MEC) 
The southern border: drawing the line in shifting (political) sands

12.10-12.30 Franck Mermier (CNRS - Paris) 
Beirut: Fear, violence and frontiers

1.00-2.30 Lunch at College

Session 3: Boundaries at stake: spaces of meaning (2.45-4.00) 
Chair: Ahmed al-Shahi (MEC)- Discussant: Daniel Meier (MEC - CLS)

2.45-3.10 Fida Bizri (INALCO - Paris) 
Language Practice in Lebanon: An Invisible Boundary Marker

3.10-3.30 Sune Haugbolle (Copenhagen University - Denmark) 
'Ala al-hudud: Liminality, space and borders in the ideology of the Lebanese Left

4.00-4.30 Concluding remarks and Perspectives 
George Asseily (Chairman of CLS Board) and Daniel Meier (CLS-MEC)