‘Imagining Citizenship in Beirut’ Lecture at AUB

The Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs cordially invites you to a lecture and discussion as part of the Social Justice and the City Lecture Series
Imagining Citizenship in Beirut: Orders of Discourse and Ethics of Commitment by Marten Boekelo, PhD

Poster Marten Boekelo holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Amsterdam, based on his dissertation ‘Of Citizens and Ordinary Men. Political Subjectivity and Contestations of Sectarianism in Reconstruction-Era Beirut’. He has taught anthropology and political science at the University of Amsterdam, was a visiting researcher at the Anthropology Department at Stanford, and held an affiliation with the AUB’s Center for Behavioral Research during his fieldwork in Beirut.

Abstract:
This talk presents an ethnographic analysis of the differences and similarities between ‘civil society’ and ‘popular’ society in Beirut. It draws on research among various NGOs and activists in ‘civil society’ as well as on a neighborhood ethnography of Khandaq al-Ghamiq (Bachoura district) and its forms of everyday public talk. It will explicate some of the ‘rules’ that govern public debates in each setting and it will highlight the values and aspirations that animate people’s contributions to them. There are both significant divergences and agreements between the two. Given that the distinction has been subject to explicit public scrutiny recently, this talk hopes to elucidate and illustrate what may actually be at stake.

Location: Issam Fares Institute – Conference Room, 4th Floor