Queer habitus: bodily performance and queer ethnography in Lebanon

Abstract

Based on ethnographic and theoretical material, this article focuses on the interaction of queer bodies within particular urban spaces in Beirut. By highlighting bodily performances that challenge normative behaviour in contemporary Lebanon, the article makes a case for the production of a queer habitus, which finds itself expressed in different ways that all emphasise the importance of bodily and mental dispositions of queer individuals in forming their own gender and class identities.

Keywords:

• Beirut
• queer habitus
• bodily performance
• drag/camp, Querdenker
• queer ethnography

Notes

^1. To ‘make one’ missed calls (‘missedcallāt’ in Lebanese Arabic) is a predominant habit that prevents the ‘caller’ from spending any valuable units (only the caller gets charged) but forcing the party that had been called to call back, and to pay.

^2. On the subject of ‘erotic self-making’ among Black Cubans, see Allen (2011). I borrow the phrase from him.

^3. In French, this type of ‘activity’ or ‘approach’ translates into the word démarche, which, as a case in point, includes the term marche (‘walk’).

^4. In French, faire marcher quelque chose (‘to make something work/walk’) vs. faire marcher quelqu’un (‘to play a joke on somebody’).

^5. On the subject of ‘camp’, see Sontag (1964).

^6. While the unity of St. Barbara and Chango, the god of thunder, as celebrated by followers of Santería in Cuba was not known by my interlocutors in Lebanon, it remains important to note that part of the Catholic saint’s attraction in many Caribbean voodoo celebrations is her ability to embody different characters.

^7. For an analysis of the topsy-turvy atmosphere of the carnival in relation to Rabelais’ writings, see Bakhtin (1984).

^8. ‘UNRWA’ stands for ‘United Nations Relief and Works Agency’ and has been catering, ever since 1948, to Palestinian refugees in historical Palestine as well as in the neighbouring Arab countries, notably Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

^9. Although used in a different context, this meaning of cosmopolitanism is reminiscent of Steven Seidman’s definition, where he argues that the notion of cosmopolitanism is part of as a rhetoric of nationalism I would call ‘consumerist’ and ‘classist’ against both sectarian and Arab nationalism. See Seidman (2012).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sofian Merabet

SOFIAN MERABET teaches in the Department of Anthropology at The University of Texas at Austin.