Sabiha Allouche | University of Exeter (original) (raw)

Papers by Sabiha Allouche

Research paper thumbnail of Circling: a Methodology

Kohl: A Journal for Body and Gender Research, 2020

Research paper thumbnail of Desiring the Nation

Arab Masculinities, Jan 4, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Western Media as 'Technology of Affect': The Affective Making of the Angry Arab Man

This paper works through the framework of affect theory in order to show how Western media and fo... more This paper works through the framework of affect theory in order to show how Western media and foreign policy contribute towards the intensifica-tion of the stereotype of the 'Angry Arab Man'. It follows the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari on affect in order to show how a 'refrain' or stereotype emerges. In addition to arguing that Western media acts as technology of affect, this paper shows the emotive component of the interplay between Western media, foreign policy, and their audiences. It challenges the autonomous and pre-cognitive as-pects of affect, and draws on feminist and postcolonial scholars in an attempt to reinsert the 'social' into debates about affect theory.

Research paper thumbnail of Queering (Inter-sectarian) Heterosexual Love in Lebanon

This paper draws on a yearlong ethnography conducted among cis heterosexual couples in contempora... more This paper draws on a yearlong ethnography conducted among cis heterosexual couples in contemporary urban Lebanon in order to examine the links between romantic love and the category of sect. The paper embraces a political understanding of love and recognizes emotions as a valid source knowledge. It puts personal narratives of “impossible” inter-sectarian love stories in conversation with queer temporality scholarship in order to recognize the political scope of inter-sectarian love. This paper argues that in the absence of a serious project of national reconciliation, inter-sectarian love, despite its short lifespan, constitutes restorative instances in post- civil war Lebanon.

Research paper thumbnail of A Review of Jasbir Puar’s The Right to Maim (and additional interjections)

Kohl: A Journal for Body and Gender Research, 2018

Research paper thumbnail of Seeking Legitimacy: Why Arab Autocracies Adopt Women’s Rights. By Aili Mari Tripp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. 334p. <span class="katex"><span class="katex-mathml"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><semantics><mrow><mn>99.99</mn><mi>c</mi><mi>l</mi><mi>o</mi><mi>t</mi><mi>h</mi><mo separator="true">,</mo></mrow><annotation encoding="application/x-tex">99.99 cloth, </annotation></semantics></math></span><span class="katex-html" aria-hidden="true"><span class="base"><span class="strut" style="height:0.8889em;vertical-align:-0.1944em;"></span><span class="mord">99.99</span><span class="mord mathnormal">c</span><span class="mord mathnormal" style="margin-right:0.01968em;">l</span><span class="mord mathnormal">o</span><span class="mord mathnormal">t</span><span class="mord mathnormal">h</span><span class="mpunct">,</span></span></span></span>29.99 paper

Perspectives on Politics, 2020

Research paper thumbnail of Seven Analytical Recommendations for the (Un)Queer-(y)ing of the Middle East

Kohl: A Journal for Body and Gender Research, 2020

Research paper thumbnail of The Reluctant Queer

Kohl: A Journal for Body and Gender Research, 2019

In “The Locations of Homophobia,” Rahul Rao (2014, 174-175) invites us to complicate our examinat... more In “The Locations of Homophobia,” Rahul Rao (2014, 174-175) invites us to complicate our examination of homophobia by turning our analysis inwardly. Whilst I maintain the bearing of the sexed (read: homophobic) colonial legacies on the contemporary discourse surrounding sexuality, including homophobia, across much of the MENA region, I agree with Rao on the importance of turning our analytic gaze inwardly in order to account for the agency of “local actors” in sustaining homophobic narratives and practices. Three concrete location(s) of homophobia are identified in this paper: the role of the Lebanese ruling-class elite in the neo-liberalization (read: depoliticization through economization) of same-sex desire, the alien rhetoric of local LGBT activism, and the “fractal orientalism” (Moussawi 2013) that reproduces Beirut as an LGBT haven. I conceptualize the “reluctant queer” in relation to each in order to challenge mainstream global media’s depictions of Lebanon as exceptionally L...

Research paper thumbnail of (Dis)-Intersecting Intersectionality in the Time of Queer Syrian-Refugee-ness in Lebanon

Kohl: A Journal for Body and Gender Research, 2017

This paper heeds Jasbir Puar’s call to supplement an intersectional analysis with an exercise of ... more This paper heeds Jasbir Puar’s call to supplement an intersectional analysis with an exercise of assemblage when examining identity politics. It argues that asylum organizations’ unwillingness to account for the interplay between the receiving state (in this case Lebanon) and the lived reality of (Syrian) LGBT refugees results in a “one size fits all” narrative that forces the latter into a more visible and potentially death-instigating corporeality. The interplay between refugees and the receiving state is summed up in the elitist discourse of a “Syrian neo-invasion” that results in the revival of an “authentic Lebanese masculinity.” Whereas the Syrian refugee is vilified as “rapist” in a heterosexual context, they are emasculated as “necessarily bottom” in a same-sex one. This discourse is hegemonized through its emergence at the intersection of sect, political loyalty, and class. At the empirical level, this paper draws on narratives recollected during fieldwork in order to show ...

Research paper thumbnail of Different Normativity and Strategic ‘Nomadic’ Marriages: Area Studies and Queer Theory

Middle East Critique, 2020

This article embraces Maya Mikdashi and Jasbir Puar's recent recommendation 'for a politics in qu... more This article embraces Maya Mikdashi and Jasbir Puar's recent recommendation 'for a politics in queer theory that works to displace the United States as the prehensive force for everyone else's future' in order to ponder the scope and reach of queer theory through/as area studies (Middle East). The article draws upon personal experiences and narratives of homo-desiring men and women in/from Lebanon who perform hetero married life whilst pursuing same-sex desire elsewhere, in order to conceive 'different normativity' and 'nomadic unions.' The article posits 'strategic nomadic marriages' as a fluctuating and unsteady type of union that accommodates the particularity of the 'sex/gender systems' of global south societies. Opening Since 2012, I have come to know an increasing number of self-identified homo-desiring men and women in and/or from Lebanon who opt to perform hetero married life in order to escape kin pressure whilst pursuing same-sex desire elsewhere. I term such practices 'strategic nomadic marriages' (SNMs). My insistence on qualifying these marriages as nomadic rather than queer will become evident throughout my analysis. My focus on SNMs is not meant to act as scholarly evidence of what popular culture has presumed and portrayed all along. 1 Nor am I building a defense case for SNMs, who can easily be discredited as fake or hypocritical. 2 Conversely, I caution against such views for the mere fact that they presuppose a universal system of moral values against which local and indigenous praxes are measured. Last but not least, I do not necessarily situate SNMs in relation to the notion of resistance, an outdated and well-documented paradigm, in my opinion. 3 Such strategic unions are unequivocally celebrated in liberal circles, who view them as a smart effort that circumvents the hostility of Lebanon's legal system towards same-sex desire; at the same time, we must remind ourselves that SNMs' heteropatriarchal underpinnings, as I show in my analysis hereafter, do coincide with critical feminists' views on the institution of marriage as unequally gendered, 4 homonormative 5 and largely exclusionary for those who find themselves operating on the margins. 6 In any case, the peculiarity of my interlocutors' agency escapes and exceeds heteronormativity as we know it. The 'different normativity' 7 that informs their day-today living and through 1 See, for example, Arab-Australian web series I LuV U But… by Foufu Films (2012); the novel Guapa by Saleem Haddad (2016), or Bareed Mist3jil by the Meem Collective (2009). 2 Such accusations prevail in the context of 'cooperative marriages' in China between selfidentified homo-desiring men and/or women; see, for example, Stephanie Yingyi Wang (2019) When Tongzhi Marry: Experiments of Cooperative Marriage between Lalas and Gay Men in Urban China, Feminist Studies 45(1), pp. 13-35. 3 Such interrogations have been examined in length by, for example, Susan B. Boyd

Research paper thumbnail of Queering Heterosexual (Intersectarian) Love in Lebanon

International Journal of Middle East Studies, 2019

This article draws on a year of ethnography conducted among cis heterosexual couples in contempor... more This article draws on a year of ethnography conducted among cis heterosexual couples in contemporary urban Lebanon in order to argue that, in the absence of a serious project of national reconciliation, intersectarian love, despite its short lifespan, constitutes restorative instances in post–civil war Lebanon. Intersectarian hetero desire emerges as a counter-discourse that threatens the masculinist foundations of the Lebanese state. By tracing the timeline of love in the life of Lebanese citizens, this article places personal narratives of “impossible” intersectarian love stories in conversation with queer temporality scholarship in order to recognize the political, albeit limited, potential of romantic love. Here, societal expectations of married life are replaced by an ephemeral unity that operates in contra to hegemonic interpretations of “man and wife.”

Research paper thumbnail of A Queer Emigration Out: The Politics of Queer Emigration from Israel

Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics, 2019

Research paper thumbnail of Are Sexual Dissidence and Gender Activism Necessarily Linked? Notes from the field on the body

Civil Society Knowledge Centre, 2015

This paper seeks to show the links between sexual dissidence and gender activism in the context o... more This paper seeks to show the links between sexual dissidence and gender activism in the context of postwar Lebanon. It reviews the framework of feminists' work on embodiment in an attempt to situate the lived experience of women and similarly less privileged gendered categories in relation to gender activism. With feminist theorists opting for the lived experience instead of the mind/body binary, to what extent can we speak of the relevance of the lived experience in the context of gender activism in postwar Lebanon? In less abstract terms, this paper asks, can we speak of gender activism when the body is reiterated in sexed terms, rather than gendered ones?

Research paper thumbnail of Love, Lebanese Style

Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, 2019

This article draws on a year of fieldwork conducted in Lebanon to highlight the paradoxical entan... more This article draws on a year of fieldwork conducted in Lebanon to highlight the paradoxical entanglement of power with romantic love in Lebanon, evident in the intricate gendered, aged, classed, and sect-related negotiations that accompany courtship periods. In addition, the article highlights the inclusive and relational qualities that external kin relations conduce. Kin approval ought not be seen as either/or divisive/conditional. For many of the couples interviewed, kin relations constitute an arena in which they can disseminate their affective bond. Such analysis is threefold. In addition to embracing the multiple subjectivity of the interlocutors, it moves beyond the standard political-economic approach that generally informs marriage studies in the Middle East and dismantles monolithic perceptions of Middle Eastern kin networks.

Research paper thumbnail of Different Normativity and Strategic 'Nomadic' Marriages: Area Studies and Queer Theory

Middle East Critique, 2020

This article embraces Maya Mikdashi and Jasbir Puar’s recent recommendation ‘for a politics in qu... more This article embraces Maya Mikdashi and Jasbir Puar’s recent recommendation ‘for a politics in queer theory that works to displace the United States as the prehensive force foreveryone else’s future’ in order to ponder the scope and reach of queer theory through/as areastudies (Middle East).The article draws upon personal experiences and narratives of homo-desiring men and women in/from Lebanon who perform hetero married life while pursuingsame-sex desire elsewhere, in order to conceive ‘different normativity’ and ‘nomadic unions.’ The article posits‘strategic nomadic marriages’as a fluctuating and unsteady type of unionthat accommodates the particularity of the‘sex/gender systems’of global south societies.
Key Words: Different normativity, Hetero-patriarchy, Lebanon, Queer analysis, Sectarianism, Strategic marriage

Research paper thumbnail of Queering (inter-sectarian) Heterosexual Love in Lebanon

International Journal of Middle East Studies, 2019

This article draws on a year of ethnography conducted among cis heterosexual couples in contempor... more This article draws on a year of ethnography conducted among cis heterosexual couples in contemporary urban Lebanon in order to argue that, in the absence of a serious project of national reconciliation, intersectarian love, despite its short lifespan, constitutes restorative instances in post–civil war Lebanon. Intersectarian hetero desire emerges as a counter-discourse that threatens the masculinist foundations of the Lebanese state. By tracing the timeline of love in the life of Lebanese citizens, this article places personal narratives of “impossible” intersectarian love stories in conversation with queer temporality scholarship in order to recognize the political, albeit limited, potential of romantic love. Here, societal expectations of married life are replaced by an ephemeral unity that operates in contra to hegemonic interpretations of “man and wife.”

Research paper thumbnail of Love, Lebanese Style: Toward an Either/And Analytic Framework of Kinship

Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, 2019

This article draws on a year of fieldwork conducted in Lebanon to highlight the paradoxical entan... more This article draws on a year of fieldwork conducted in Lebanon to highlight the paradoxical entanglement of power with romantic love in Lebanon, evident in the intricate gendered, aged, classed, and sect-related negotiations that accompany courtship periods. In addition, the article highlights the inclusive and relational qualities that external kin relations conduce. Kin approval ought not be seen as either/or divisive/conditional. For many of the couples interviewed, kin relations constitute an arena in which they can disseminate their affective bond. Such analysis is threefold. In addition to embracing the multiple subjectivity of the interlocutors, it moves beyond the standard political-economic approach that generally informs marriage studies in the Middle East and dismantles monolithic perceptions of Middle Eastern kin networks.

Research paper thumbnail of The Reluctant Queer

Kohl: a Journal for Body and Gender Research, 2018

In "The Locations of Homophobia," Rahul Rao (2014, 174-175) invites us to complicate our examinat... more In "The Locations of Homophobia," Rahul Rao (2014, 174-175) invites us to complicate our examination of homophobia by turning our analysis inwardly. Whilst I maintain the bearing of the sexed (read: homophobic) colonial legacies on the contemporary discourse surrounding sexuality, including homophobia, across much of the MENA region, I agree with Rao on the importance of turning our analytic gaze inwardly in order to account for the agency of "local actors" in sustaining homophobic narratives and practices. Three concrete location(s) of homophobia are identified in this paper: the role of the Lebanese ruling-class elite in the neo-liberalisation (read: depoliticization through economization) of same-sex desire, the alien rhetoric of local LGBT activism, and the "fractal orientalism" (Moussawi 2013) that reproduces Beirut as an LGBT haven. I conceptualize the "reluctant queer" in relation to each in order to challenge mainstream global media's depictions of Lebanon as exceptionally LGBT-friendly, particularly where LGBT activism is concerned.

Research paper thumbnail of (Dis)-Intersecting Intersectionality in the Time of Queer Syrian Refugee-ness in Lebanon

Kohl: a Journal for Body and Gender Research, 2017

This paper heeds Jasbir Puar's call to supplement an intersectional analysis with an exercise of ... more This paper heeds Jasbir Puar's call to supplement an intersectional analysis with an exercise of assemblage when examining identity politics. It argues that asylum organizations' unwillingness to account for the interplay between the receiving state (in this case Lebanon) and the lived reality of (Syrian) LGBT refugees results in a " one size fits all " narrative that forces the latter into a more visible and potentially death-instigating corporeality. The interplay between refugees and the receiving state is summed up in the elitist discourse of a " Syrian neo-invasion " that results in the revival of an " authentic Lebanese masculinity. " Whereas the Syrian refugee is vilified as " rapist " in a heterosexual context, they are emasculated as " necessarily bottom " in a same-sex one. This discourse is hegemonized through its emergence at the intersection of sect, political loyalty, and class. At the empirical level, this paper draws on narratives recollected during fieldwork in order to show the limits of an analysis that takes identity politics as given, as seen in asylum organization's western-imbued " fixed " interpretations of what LGBT identities should " look like " and " act like. " Acknowledgments:

Research paper thumbnail of Whatever Happened to the Cedar Revolution? Gender and Civil Society in Post-war Lebanon

At a time where Tunisia and Egypt occupy most of the discussions related to the Arab Spring, this... more At a time where Tunisia and Egypt occupy most of the discussions related to the Arab Spring, this paper seeks to revive the topic of the Cedar Revolution, a unique event that saw thousands of Lebanese citizens in 2005 gather to call for a withdrawal of Syrian troops and swear an oath to defend Lebanon, regardless of their faith – an unprecedented move seeing the sectarian grip that often characterizes Lebanon. For many commentators, this gathering reflected an existing though dormant civil society in Lebanon. This paper seeks to explore the short livelihood of this event by focusing on civil society and gender as its framework. By understanding the gendered nature of civil society in Lebanon, we can identify essential requirements of which civil society falls short and the rapid breakdown of the Cedar Revolution.

Research paper thumbnail of Circling: a Methodology

Kohl: A Journal for Body and Gender Research, 2020

Research paper thumbnail of Desiring the Nation

Arab Masculinities, Jan 4, 2022

Research paper thumbnail of Western Media as 'Technology of Affect': The Affective Making of the Angry Arab Man

This paper works through the framework of affect theory in order to show how Western media and fo... more This paper works through the framework of affect theory in order to show how Western media and foreign policy contribute towards the intensifica-tion of the stereotype of the 'Angry Arab Man'. It follows the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari on affect in order to show how a 'refrain' or stereotype emerges. In addition to arguing that Western media acts as technology of affect, this paper shows the emotive component of the interplay between Western media, foreign policy, and their audiences. It challenges the autonomous and pre-cognitive as-pects of affect, and draws on feminist and postcolonial scholars in an attempt to reinsert the 'social' into debates about affect theory.

Research paper thumbnail of Queering (Inter-sectarian) Heterosexual Love in Lebanon

This paper draws on a yearlong ethnography conducted among cis heterosexual couples in contempora... more This paper draws on a yearlong ethnography conducted among cis heterosexual couples in contemporary urban Lebanon in order to examine the links between romantic love and the category of sect. The paper embraces a political understanding of love and recognizes emotions as a valid source knowledge. It puts personal narratives of “impossible” inter-sectarian love stories in conversation with queer temporality scholarship in order to recognize the political scope of inter-sectarian love. This paper argues that in the absence of a serious project of national reconciliation, inter-sectarian love, despite its short lifespan, constitutes restorative instances in post- civil war Lebanon.

Research paper thumbnail of A Review of Jasbir Puar’s The Right to Maim (and additional interjections)

Kohl: A Journal for Body and Gender Research, 2018

Research paper thumbnail of Seeking Legitimacy: Why Arab Autocracies Adopt Women’s Rights. By Aili Mari Tripp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. 334p. <span class="katex"><span class="katex-mathml"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><semantics><mrow><mn>99.99</mn><mi>c</mi><mi>l</mi><mi>o</mi><mi>t</mi><mi>h</mi><mo separator="true">,</mo></mrow><annotation encoding="application/x-tex">99.99 cloth, </annotation></semantics></math></span><span class="katex-html" aria-hidden="true"><span class="base"><span class="strut" style="height:0.8889em;vertical-align:-0.1944em;"></span><span class="mord">99.99</span><span class="mord mathnormal">c</span><span class="mord mathnormal" style="margin-right:0.01968em;">l</span><span class="mord mathnormal">o</span><span class="mord mathnormal">t</span><span class="mord mathnormal">h</span><span class="mpunct">,</span></span></span></span>29.99 paper

Perspectives on Politics, 2020

Research paper thumbnail of Seven Analytical Recommendations for the (Un)Queer-(y)ing of the Middle East

Kohl: A Journal for Body and Gender Research, 2020

Research paper thumbnail of The Reluctant Queer

Kohl: A Journal for Body and Gender Research, 2019

In “The Locations of Homophobia,” Rahul Rao (2014, 174-175) invites us to complicate our examinat... more In “The Locations of Homophobia,” Rahul Rao (2014, 174-175) invites us to complicate our examination of homophobia by turning our analysis inwardly. Whilst I maintain the bearing of the sexed (read: homophobic) colonial legacies on the contemporary discourse surrounding sexuality, including homophobia, across much of the MENA region, I agree with Rao on the importance of turning our analytic gaze inwardly in order to account for the agency of “local actors” in sustaining homophobic narratives and practices. Three concrete location(s) of homophobia are identified in this paper: the role of the Lebanese ruling-class elite in the neo-liberalization (read: depoliticization through economization) of same-sex desire, the alien rhetoric of local LGBT activism, and the “fractal orientalism” (Moussawi 2013) that reproduces Beirut as an LGBT haven. I conceptualize the “reluctant queer” in relation to each in order to challenge mainstream global media’s depictions of Lebanon as exceptionally L...

Research paper thumbnail of (Dis)-Intersecting Intersectionality in the Time of Queer Syrian-Refugee-ness in Lebanon

Kohl: A Journal for Body and Gender Research, 2017

This paper heeds Jasbir Puar’s call to supplement an intersectional analysis with an exercise of ... more This paper heeds Jasbir Puar’s call to supplement an intersectional analysis with an exercise of assemblage when examining identity politics. It argues that asylum organizations’ unwillingness to account for the interplay between the receiving state (in this case Lebanon) and the lived reality of (Syrian) LGBT refugees results in a “one size fits all” narrative that forces the latter into a more visible and potentially death-instigating corporeality. The interplay between refugees and the receiving state is summed up in the elitist discourse of a “Syrian neo-invasion” that results in the revival of an “authentic Lebanese masculinity.” Whereas the Syrian refugee is vilified as “rapist” in a heterosexual context, they are emasculated as “necessarily bottom” in a same-sex one. This discourse is hegemonized through its emergence at the intersection of sect, political loyalty, and class. At the empirical level, this paper draws on narratives recollected during fieldwork in order to show ...

Research paper thumbnail of Different Normativity and Strategic ‘Nomadic’ Marriages: Area Studies and Queer Theory

Middle East Critique, 2020

This article embraces Maya Mikdashi and Jasbir Puar's recent recommendation 'for a politics in qu... more This article embraces Maya Mikdashi and Jasbir Puar's recent recommendation 'for a politics in queer theory that works to displace the United States as the prehensive force for everyone else's future' in order to ponder the scope and reach of queer theory through/as area studies (Middle East). The article draws upon personal experiences and narratives of homo-desiring men and women in/from Lebanon who perform hetero married life whilst pursuing same-sex desire elsewhere, in order to conceive 'different normativity' and 'nomadic unions.' The article posits 'strategic nomadic marriages' as a fluctuating and unsteady type of union that accommodates the particularity of the 'sex/gender systems' of global south societies. Opening Since 2012, I have come to know an increasing number of self-identified homo-desiring men and women in and/or from Lebanon who opt to perform hetero married life in order to escape kin pressure whilst pursuing same-sex desire elsewhere. I term such practices 'strategic nomadic marriages' (SNMs). My insistence on qualifying these marriages as nomadic rather than queer will become evident throughout my analysis. My focus on SNMs is not meant to act as scholarly evidence of what popular culture has presumed and portrayed all along. 1 Nor am I building a defense case for SNMs, who can easily be discredited as fake or hypocritical. 2 Conversely, I caution against such views for the mere fact that they presuppose a universal system of moral values against which local and indigenous praxes are measured. Last but not least, I do not necessarily situate SNMs in relation to the notion of resistance, an outdated and well-documented paradigm, in my opinion. 3 Such strategic unions are unequivocally celebrated in liberal circles, who view them as a smart effort that circumvents the hostility of Lebanon's legal system towards same-sex desire; at the same time, we must remind ourselves that SNMs' heteropatriarchal underpinnings, as I show in my analysis hereafter, do coincide with critical feminists' views on the institution of marriage as unequally gendered, 4 homonormative 5 and largely exclusionary for those who find themselves operating on the margins. 6 In any case, the peculiarity of my interlocutors' agency escapes and exceeds heteronormativity as we know it. The 'different normativity' 7 that informs their day-today living and through 1 See, for example, Arab-Australian web series I LuV U But… by Foufu Films (2012); the novel Guapa by Saleem Haddad (2016), or Bareed Mist3jil by the Meem Collective (2009). 2 Such accusations prevail in the context of 'cooperative marriages' in China between selfidentified homo-desiring men and/or women; see, for example, Stephanie Yingyi Wang (2019) When Tongzhi Marry: Experiments of Cooperative Marriage between Lalas and Gay Men in Urban China, Feminist Studies 45(1), pp. 13-35. 3 Such interrogations have been examined in length by, for example, Susan B. Boyd

Research paper thumbnail of Queering Heterosexual (Intersectarian) Love in Lebanon

International Journal of Middle East Studies, 2019

This article draws on a year of ethnography conducted among cis heterosexual couples in contempor... more This article draws on a year of ethnography conducted among cis heterosexual couples in contemporary urban Lebanon in order to argue that, in the absence of a serious project of national reconciliation, intersectarian love, despite its short lifespan, constitutes restorative instances in post–civil war Lebanon. Intersectarian hetero desire emerges as a counter-discourse that threatens the masculinist foundations of the Lebanese state. By tracing the timeline of love in the life of Lebanese citizens, this article places personal narratives of “impossible” intersectarian love stories in conversation with queer temporality scholarship in order to recognize the political, albeit limited, potential of romantic love. Here, societal expectations of married life are replaced by an ephemeral unity that operates in contra to hegemonic interpretations of “man and wife.”

Research paper thumbnail of A Queer Emigration Out: The Politics of Queer Emigration from Israel

Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics, 2019

Research paper thumbnail of Are Sexual Dissidence and Gender Activism Necessarily Linked? Notes from the field on the body

Civil Society Knowledge Centre, 2015

This paper seeks to show the links between sexual dissidence and gender activism in the context o... more This paper seeks to show the links between sexual dissidence and gender activism in the context of postwar Lebanon. It reviews the framework of feminists' work on embodiment in an attempt to situate the lived experience of women and similarly less privileged gendered categories in relation to gender activism. With feminist theorists opting for the lived experience instead of the mind/body binary, to what extent can we speak of the relevance of the lived experience in the context of gender activism in postwar Lebanon? In less abstract terms, this paper asks, can we speak of gender activism when the body is reiterated in sexed terms, rather than gendered ones?

Research paper thumbnail of Love, Lebanese Style

Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, 2019

This article draws on a year of fieldwork conducted in Lebanon to highlight the paradoxical entan... more This article draws on a year of fieldwork conducted in Lebanon to highlight the paradoxical entanglement of power with romantic love in Lebanon, evident in the intricate gendered, aged, classed, and sect-related negotiations that accompany courtship periods. In addition, the article highlights the inclusive and relational qualities that external kin relations conduce. Kin approval ought not be seen as either/or divisive/conditional. For many of the couples interviewed, kin relations constitute an arena in which they can disseminate their affective bond. Such analysis is threefold. In addition to embracing the multiple subjectivity of the interlocutors, it moves beyond the standard political-economic approach that generally informs marriage studies in the Middle East and dismantles monolithic perceptions of Middle Eastern kin networks.

Research paper thumbnail of Different Normativity and Strategic 'Nomadic' Marriages: Area Studies and Queer Theory

Middle East Critique, 2020

This article embraces Maya Mikdashi and Jasbir Puar’s recent recommendation ‘for a politics in qu... more This article embraces Maya Mikdashi and Jasbir Puar’s recent recommendation ‘for a politics in queer theory that works to displace the United States as the prehensive force foreveryone else’s future’ in order to ponder the scope and reach of queer theory through/as areastudies (Middle East).The article draws upon personal experiences and narratives of homo-desiring men and women in/from Lebanon who perform hetero married life while pursuingsame-sex desire elsewhere, in order to conceive ‘different normativity’ and ‘nomadic unions.’ The article posits‘strategic nomadic marriages’as a fluctuating and unsteady type of unionthat accommodates the particularity of the‘sex/gender systems’of global south societies.
Key Words: Different normativity, Hetero-patriarchy, Lebanon, Queer analysis, Sectarianism, Strategic marriage

Research paper thumbnail of Queering (inter-sectarian) Heterosexual Love in Lebanon

International Journal of Middle East Studies, 2019

This article draws on a year of ethnography conducted among cis heterosexual couples in contempor... more This article draws on a year of ethnography conducted among cis heterosexual couples in contemporary urban Lebanon in order to argue that, in the absence of a serious project of national reconciliation, intersectarian love, despite its short lifespan, constitutes restorative instances in post–civil war Lebanon. Intersectarian hetero desire emerges as a counter-discourse that threatens the masculinist foundations of the Lebanese state. By tracing the timeline of love in the life of Lebanese citizens, this article places personal narratives of “impossible” intersectarian love stories in conversation with queer temporality scholarship in order to recognize the political, albeit limited, potential of romantic love. Here, societal expectations of married life are replaced by an ephemeral unity that operates in contra to hegemonic interpretations of “man and wife.”

Research paper thumbnail of Love, Lebanese Style: Toward an Either/And Analytic Framework of Kinship

Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, 2019

This article draws on a year of fieldwork conducted in Lebanon to highlight the paradoxical entan... more This article draws on a year of fieldwork conducted in Lebanon to highlight the paradoxical entanglement of power with romantic love in Lebanon, evident in the intricate gendered, aged, classed, and sect-related negotiations that accompany courtship periods. In addition, the article highlights the inclusive and relational qualities that external kin relations conduce. Kin approval ought not be seen as either/or divisive/conditional. For many of the couples interviewed, kin relations constitute an arena in which they can disseminate their affective bond. Such analysis is threefold. In addition to embracing the multiple subjectivity of the interlocutors, it moves beyond the standard political-economic approach that generally informs marriage studies in the Middle East and dismantles monolithic perceptions of Middle Eastern kin networks.

Research paper thumbnail of The Reluctant Queer

Kohl: a Journal for Body and Gender Research, 2018

In "The Locations of Homophobia," Rahul Rao (2014, 174-175) invites us to complicate our examinat... more In "The Locations of Homophobia," Rahul Rao (2014, 174-175) invites us to complicate our examination of homophobia by turning our analysis inwardly. Whilst I maintain the bearing of the sexed (read: homophobic) colonial legacies on the contemporary discourse surrounding sexuality, including homophobia, across much of the MENA region, I agree with Rao on the importance of turning our analytic gaze inwardly in order to account for the agency of "local actors" in sustaining homophobic narratives and practices. Three concrete location(s) of homophobia are identified in this paper: the role of the Lebanese ruling-class elite in the neo-liberalisation (read: depoliticization through economization) of same-sex desire, the alien rhetoric of local LGBT activism, and the "fractal orientalism" (Moussawi 2013) that reproduces Beirut as an LGBT haven. I conceptualize the "reluctant queer" in relation to each in order to challenge mainstream global media's depictions of Lebanon as exceptionally LGBT-friendly, particularly where LGBT activism is concerned.

Research paper thumbnail of (Dis)-Intersecting Intersectionality in the Time of Queer Syrian Refugee-ness in Lebanon

Kohl: a Journal for Body and Gender Research, 2017

This paper heeds Jasbir Puar's call to supplement an intersectional analysis with an exercise of ... more This paper heeds Jasbir Puar's call to supplement an intersectional analysis with an exercise of assemblage when examining identity politics. It argues that asylum organizations' unwillingness to account for the interplay between the receiving state (in this case Lebanon) and the lived reality of (Syrian) LGBT refugees results in a " one size fits all " narrative that forces the latter into a more visible and potentially death-instigating corporeality. The interplay between refugees and the receiving state is summed up in the elitist discourse of a " Syrian neo-invasion " that results in the revival of an " authentic Lebanese masculinity. " Whereas the Syrian refugee is vilified as " rapist " in a heterosexual context, they are emasculated as " necessarily bottom " in a same-sex one. This discourse is hegemonized through its emergence at the intersection of sect, political loyalty, and class. At the empirical level, this paper draws on narratives recollected during fieldwork in order to show the limits of an analysis that takes identity politics as given, as seen in asylum organization's western-imbued " fixed " interpretations of what LGBT identities should " look like " and " act like. " Acknowledgments:

Research paper thumbnail of Whatever Happened to the Cedar Revolution? Gender and Civil Society in Post-war Lebanon

At a time where Tunisia and Egypt occupy most of the discussions related to the Arab Spring, this... more At a time where Tunisia and Egypt occupy most of the discussions related to the Arab Spring, this paper seeks to revive the topic of the Cedar Revolution, a unique event that saw thousands of Lebanese citizens in 2005 gather to call for a withdrawal of Syrian troops and swear an oath to defend Lebanon, regardless of their faith – an unprecedented move seeing the sectarian grip that often characterizes Lebanon. For many commentators, this gathering reflected an existing though dormant civil society in Lebanon. This paper seeks to explore the short livelihood of this event by focusing on civil society and gender as its framework. By understanding the gendered nature of civil society in Lebanon, we can identify essential requirements of which civil society falls short and the rapid breakdown of the Cedar Revolution.

Research paper thumbnail of Review of "A Queer Way Out: The Politics of Queer Emigration from Israel" by Hila Amit

Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics, 3(1-2), 20 A Queer Way Out: The Politics of Queer Emigration from Israel, 2019

Research paper thumbnail of A Review of Jasbir Puar's "The Right to Maim" (and further interjections)

Kohl: a Journal for Body and Gender Research, 2018

Research paper thumbnail of CfP for our upcoming workshop 'Affect and Violence: Gendering the Middle East' Gender

It would be really appreciated if you could share this CfP. The deadline​ for abstracts is ​ 30 A... more It would be really appreciated if you could share this CfP. The deadline​ for abstracts is ​ 30 April. 17. ​ Affect and Violence: Gendering the Middle East The aim of the proposed workshop is to explore the role of emotions and affect in (re)presenting, normalizing and shaping the contours of gender and violence in reference to the Middle East and North Africa in particular and the global south more broadly. There has been a good deal of scholarly attention in recent years to affects around conflict, disaster, vulnerability and trauma, but largely in relation to Euro-American perspectives and theorisations. This workshop aims instead to engage with the ways in which emotional framings of violence and gender in the MENA region are shaped by the co-constitution of local and global, West and non-West, and the historical and the everyday within transnational contexts. We encourage submissions which examine in what ways the geopolitics of nationalism, (in)security, conflict and crisis in the region reinforce or complicate gendered and racialised discourses, and how the tasks of solidarity are rendered more complex and layered as a result. These concerns may be shaped by attention to the broader context of the role of epistemic violence in constructions of the region, in the biopolitics and necropolitics of managing the life and death of populations. We welcome papers which speak to these or related issues. Contributions may address the role of affect in, for example, orientalising and racialising regimes of grievability and vulnerability; emotional narratives of gendered violence in online and/or offline popular culture, including visual mediations of violence; banal and ordinary framings of violence and

Research paper thumbnail of Mediation, Subjectivities and Digital Geographies of Affect (cfp proposed by Sara Tafakori, LSE and Sabiha Allouche, SOAS for ​ Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication​ -​ MJCC

This call for papers responds to the affective turn in media and cultural studies and addresses t... more This call for papers responds to the affective turn in media and cultural studies and addresses the relative inattention to the mediation of emotions and affect in the Middle East. It thus invites contributions which investigate the relation between digital technologies and the politics and cultures of emotions and affectivities in the Middle East, especially papers which problematize translocal and transnational mediations. It invites explorations of the ways in which the (im)possibilities of emotions and of embodied 'being' in the region have been mediated, shaped, restricted and challenged, through 1) historicizing and locating the distinctive affective epistemologies of coloniality; and 2) examining the locatedness of emotionalities across and/or within borders, and what such positions of dividedness or convergence imply for scholars, often working within what is branded as 'area studies', with all its political and academic implications of peripherality (Mikdashi and Puar 2016). Utilising emotion as a lens, we suggest, yields new insights into the relation of the macro-political to everyday life in global media spaces. We see emotions, as practices and subjectivities, as operating differentially across geographical and racialized and gendered contexts. For us, emotions are embedded in particular histories, shaping who we identify with and who we are less likely to identify with, framing the potentialities of forging solidarities, and whose bodies are and are not seen as vulnerable. We are therefore interested in approaches which reflect on and problematise ideas around emotions as universal (Lutz and Abu-Lughod 1990, Pedwell 2014) and which are situated within the broad framework of decolonising affect studies. This special issue poses the question: to what extent is the 'turn to affect' predicated upon an orientation towards Western and Eurocentric epistemes? To put it another way, how far have Middle Eastern societies and media, and those of the Global South more generally, been excluded from affect and emotion studies? We propose, then, that although the 'affective turn' has been discussed as a phenomenon across the humanities, social sciences and sciences for the past