Ethnocracies of care and humanitarianism in Lebanon

In this article, I discuss the tendency of the humanitarian system in areas affected by crisis to provide services to people in need on a national basis, by using Lebanon as a case study. Through the research I conducted with Syrian, Iraqi, Sudanese and Palestinian refugees between 2011 and 2019 in...

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Bibliographic Details
Author: Carpi, Estella
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2022
Country:Brasil
Institution:Centro Scalabriniano de Estudos Migratórios (CSEM)
Repository:REMHU (Online)
Language:Portuguese
OAI Identifier:oai:remhu.csem.br:article/1536
Online Access:https://remhu.csem.org.br/index.php/remhu/article/view/1536
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:humanitarismo
refugiados sírios
deslocamento
Líbano
etnização
ethnicization
humanitarianism
syrian refugees
Lebanon
displacement
Description
Summary:In this article, I discuss the tendency of the humanitarian system in areas affected by crisis to provide services to people in need on a national basis, by using Lebanon as a case study. Through the research I conducted with Syrian, Iraqi, Sudanese and Palestinian refugees between 2011 and 2019 in Lebanon, I will illustrate, first, how hospitality can be employed both as a practice and as a discourse. In the latter case, I will explain how it can problematically turn into an “ethnicization” force in humanitarian aid provision. As a result of a conservative use of the hospitality discourse, second, I will introduce the concept of “compensatory humanitarianism” that caters for the locals as a consequence of the refugee presence. Against this backdrop, I will finally show how the current humanitarian system is far from being inter-group despite its efforts to make programs nationally mixed...