"Barbosa elegantly and astutely blends two years of ethnographic research among Palestinian and other Arab residents of the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut with a critical 'diseducation' of structural concepts such as agency, gender, generation, power, and the state. Highly recommended."—Choice
"This ethnography is ultimately a deeply empathetic and humane call for attention to the urgent conditions of Palestinian refugees and other disenfranchised communities in Lebanon and beyond."—Arab Studies Quarterly
"The writing is beautiful, playful, and at times subversive, as the chapters weave back and forth through history, ethnography, and theory. It is a must-read for scholars of gender, refugees, youth cultures, and Middle East anthropology."—Marcia C. Inhorn, Yale University
"This thoughtful ethnography, with its focus on masculinity, makes important interventions into the anthropological scholarship on gender, refugee studies, and state in the Middle East. There are direct voices of the interlocutors— also female interlocutors—which combine beautifully and often humorously with the author’s own voice and sensibility."—Nefissa Naguib, author of Nurturing Masculinities: Men, Food, and Family in Contemporary Egypt
Description
The Best of Hard Times explores the gendered identities of two generations of men in the Shatila Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut. Gustavo Barbosa compares the fida’iyyin, the men who served as freedom fighters to reconquer Palestine in the 1970s, to the shabab, their sons who lead seemingly mundane lives with limited access to power. While the fida’iyyinn displayed their masculinity through active resistance and fighting to return to their homeland, the shabab have a more nuanced relationship to Palestine and articulate their gender belonging in alternative ways.
Through vivid ethnographic stories, Barbosa critically engages with certain trends in feminism, calling attention to their limits and considering nimble views on gender. Instead of presenting the shabab as emasculated or experiencing a crisis of masculinity, the book shows the pliability of masculinity in time and space and argues that “gender” has limited purchase to capture the experiences of today’s youth from Shatila. Based on two years of fieldwork, The Best of Hard Times answers the burgeoning demand for anthropological literature on Arab masculinities and portrays refugees as inventive actors rather than agentless victims of circumstances beyond their control. The Best of Hard Times is a tour de force combining highbrow theory with gripping ethnography, challenging many of the stereotypes on gender, power, statehood, and the role of Islam in the Middle East.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations, Tables, and Charts xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Acronyms xix
Timeline: History of the Palestinian Diaspora in Lebanon xxi
Introduction: Thinking through Water 1
1. Submerging: Under Siege 43
2. Drowning by Numbers and Legislation: Statistics
and (Non)State Making in Shatila 73
3. Swirling and Twirling: The Fida’iyyin’s Heroism
and the Shabab’s Burden 122
4. Pororoca, Thinking through Music: Fida’iyyin and Shabab Talk
(Sometimes) Past Each Other 181
5. Reemerging: Noncockfights 236
6. Resurfacing: The Antilove of Empire 251
Glossary of Levantine Arabic Terms 273
References 285
Index 311
About the Author
Gustavo Barbosa is an associate researcher at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Universidade Federal Fluminense (NEOM/UFF), in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. http://gustavo-barbosa.com
Series: Gender, Culture, and Politics in the Middle East
6 x 9, 360 pages, 14 black and white illustrations
January 2022