Lords of the Lebanese Marches: Violence and Narrative in an Arab SocietyMichael Gilsenan looks at the relations between different forms of power, violence, and hierarchy in Akkar, the northernmost province of Lebanon, during the 1970s. Often regarded as backward and feudal, in reality this area was controlled primarily by groups with important roles in government and business in Beirut. The most "feudal" landowners had often done most to introduce capitalist methods to their estates, and "backwardness" was a condition produced by this form of political and social control. Gilsenan uses material from his stay in Akkar and a variety of historical sources to analyze the practices that guaranteed the rule of the large landowners. He traces shifts in power, and he examines the importance of narratives and rhetoric in constituting social honor, collective biography, and shared memory/forgetting. His lively account shows how changes in hierarchy were expressed in ironic commentary regarding idealized masculinity and violence, how subversive laughter and humor counterpointed the heroic ethic of challenge and revenge, and how peasant narratives both countered and reproduced the values of hierarchy. |
Contents
Contexts and Contests | 3 |
vii | 57 |
Fathomless Ocean | 67 |
Precarious Archaism | 79 |
Underdeveloped Periphery | 95 |
Famine and Memory | 115 |
Fellahin and Famine | 140 |
Gallous Story or Dirty Deed | 159 |
Joking Play and Pressure | 206 |
The Perils of Display | 231 |
A Killing in the Street | 250 |
The Challenge of Work and Wages | 265 |
Horsemen on Tractors | 281 |
CODA The Roses of Life | 299 |
Notes to Chapters | 322 |
361 | |
Other editions - View all
Lords of the Lebanese Marches: Violence and Narrative in an Arab Society Michael Gilsenan Limited preview - 1996 |
Lords of the Lebanese Marches: Violence and Narrative in an Arab Society Michael Gilsenan No preview available - 1995 |
Lords of the Lebanese Marches: Violence and Narrative in an Arab Society Michael Gilsenan No preview available - 1995 |
Common terms and phrases
Abboud Bey Abd al Latif Abd al Qadir Abd ar-Rahim Abd ar-Razzaq Abdallah Abu Walid aghas agricultural Ahmad Akkar Arab audience behaviour Beirut Beit Abd as-Salam Berqayl bey's brother challenge chauffeur claims companion confrontation context cultivators descent group discourse dispute domination drivers economic father fellah fellahin figure force grandfather Hajj Halba harvest hectares hierarchy Ibrahim identity insult jaqmara Khalid killing knew labour land landowners Lebanese Lebanon lived lords male manzul mayor Minister mosque Mount Lebanon mountain Muhammad al Abboud murafiq Nabil Nadim narrative olive grove opponents Ottoman Pasha performance plain play political position qabaday ra'is reception room region relations rhetorical role sahra senior sharecroppers shebab sheikh ash-shebab shunbul significance situation social someone space status honour story Syria tafnis Tamimi told tractor Tripoli village violence Walid word young agha Zawiya