The Manufacturing of Rights: Beirut

The concept and figure of Nature is invoked to criminalize sexual orientation and gender identity for being “against nature” in Article 534 of Lebanon’s Penal code, as well as in more than 50 countries across the world.

Using this concept to divide what is “natural” and “unnatural,” politicians, judges or religious figures ascribe to Nature an undeniable source of authority, and enforce this division with the full coercive power of the state.

However, recent legal cases documented by Legal Agenda in Lebanon demonstrate how judges can interpret the concept of Nature in such a way as to dismiss and refute accusations of sodomy or other “unnatural behaviors.”

Based on these precedents, Council has proposed The Manufacturing of Rights, a plural disciplinary inquiry that unfolds a series of new arguments to show how the concept of Nature is imbued with multiple, contradictory meanings used to regulate societal norms. Over the course of this three-day colloquium, participants are invited to share legal cases, historical and speculative, that refer to Nature – in the form of short speeches, audio pieces and films.

Participants include Lawrence Abu Hamdan (artist, Lebanon), Vanessa Agard-Jones (ethnographer and gender scholar, US), Marwa Arsanios (artist, Lebanon), Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz (artists, Germany/Switzerland), Grégory Castéra (curator, France), Emma McCormick-Goodhart (curatorial assistant, France), Nayla Geagea (lawyer, Lebanon), Eric Gitari (activist, Kenya), David Kim (curator and legal researcher, US), Adrian Lahoud (architect, UK), Youmna Makhlouf (lawyer, Lebanon), Maya Mikdashi (legal anthropologist, US), Carlos Motta (artist, Colombia), Karim Nammour (legal researcher, Lebanon), Arvind Narrain (lawyer, India), Émilie Notéris (writer, France), Nizar Saghieh (lawyer, Lebanon), Ashkan Sepahvand (writer, Germany), Sandra Terdjman (curator, France), Linn Tonstad (theologian, US) and Zeb Tortorici (historian, US).