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Papers by Nelia Hyndman-Rizk
Journal of Middle East Women's Studies
Labour and Management in Development, Mar 28, 2014
Gender and Education, 2018
ABSTRACT While expanding higher education is an important component of women’s agency development... more ABSTRACT While expanding higher education is an important component of women’s agency development, subsequent employment in the labour market remains an impediment to realising gender equality in many developing countries. In Bangladesh, while the rate of women’s higher education completion has steadily increased, employment has not kept pace, resulting in a paradox of declining female labour force participation rates amongst graduates. Therefore, this paper asks: Does higher education improve women’s agency development and empowerment in Bangladesh? This case study, on the experience of female students at a public women’s college in Northern Bangladesh, distinguishes between their instrumental and intrinsic empowerment and identifies key determinants and constraints for their agency development. The research found that female students improved their intrinsic, but not their instrumental empowerment, because of four factors: stereotyped subject selection, limited IT competence, a lack of relevant job skills and limited career aspirations. In order to improve gender equality, the study recommends greater educational investment to improve the quality of female higher education, so that graduates develop the capabilities to meet labour market requirements, thereby narrowing the gap between their agency development and labour force participation.
Journal of Intercultural Studies, 2016
ABSTRACT Although frequently debated in the media, few ethnographic studies have examined the dyn... more ABSTRACT Although frequently debated in the media, few ethnographic studies have examined the dynamics between arranged and love marriages in immigrant communities in Australia. Drawing on Sollors’ theory of Consent over Descent and Bourdieu’s theory of Masculine Domination, this paper examines the cultural transformation brought about by second-generation daughters in Maronite, Lebanese immigrant families from Hadchit who increasingly choose their own spouse based on love and gender equality. This paper theorises women as subjects, not objects of marriage and asks: how does cultural identity change when women have greater agency in the negotiation of marriage? The study finds three dialectical processes of social change. First, the relation of male domination between the sexes has been destabilised. Second, although marriage contracts based upon female consent have led to a growing preference for exogamous love marriages over endogamous arranged marriages within the village, religious endogamy has remained significant. Last, the study finds an overall decline in village identification; ‘Lebanese-Australian’ has become the most common form of cultural identification.
Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, 2019
Amid an enduring political deadlock in Parliament, the first civil marriage contracted in Lebanon... more Amid an enduring political deadlock in Parliament, the first civil marriage contracted in Lebanon in 2013 received significant media coverage in a country where the personal status law of eighteen recognized religious sects governs marriage. This case study examines the debate on civil marriage reform and the implications for women’s rights in Lebanon. For advocates, the recognition of civil marriage legalizes interreligious marriages, strengthens secular citizenship, shifts the jurisdiction of marriage from religious to civil law, and ensures women’s rights. Opponents, meanwhile, fear the loss of religious autonomy, the transformation of self-identification in Lebanon from sect to nation, and the destabilization of the confessional system. To date, civil marriage reform has been incremental, given clerical and social opposition, but the winds of change are blowing as couples increasingly take matters into their own hands to reform Lebanon’s system of personal status from the ground...
Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, 2019
Amid an enduring political deadlock in Parliament, the first civil marriage contracted in Lebanon... more Amid an enduring political deadlock in Parliament, the first civil marriage contracted in Lebanon in 2013 received significant media coverage in a country where the personal status law of eighteen recognized religious sects governs marriage. This case study examines the debate on civil marriage reform and the implications for women’s rights in Lebanon. For advocates, the recognition of civil marriage legalizes interreligious marriages, strengthens secular citizenship, shifts the jurisdiction of marriage from religious to civil law, and ensures women’s rights. Opponents, meanwhile, fear the loss of religious autonomy, the transformation of self-identification in Lebanon from sect to nation, and the destabilization of the confessional system. To date, civil marriage reform has been incremental, given clerical and social opposition, but the winds of change are blowing as couples increasingly take matters into their own hands to reform Lebanon’s system of personal status from the ground up.
Why do immigrants search out self-employment in small business and is this preference a matter of... more Why do immigrants search out self-employment in small business and is this preference a matter of choice or necessity? This puzzle has long been the subject of scholarly inquiry. In Australia Collins et al (1995), in the landmark study of immigrant 1 small business, A Shop Full of Dreams: Ethnic Small Business in Australia, found that, compared to the Australian born, minority immigrant groups were over represented in small business activity. Similarly, international studies find that small business is an important factor in the economic advancement of immigrants (Sanders & Nee, 1996) and that immigrants tend to be more highly represented amongst the self-employed than those born in the host society (OECD, 2010; Wayland, 2011). More recently, the Australian Bureau of Statistics similarly found 1 The term immigrant rather than ethnic will be used in this special edition and the focus will be on culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) businesses
The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology
This paper analyses the search for love and agency amongst second-generation Lebanese women in Au... more This paper analyses the search for love and agency amongst second-generation Lebanese women in Australia, who seek choice and equality in marriage, options they believe were not available to their own mothers. Second-generation daughters are rejecting the institution of arranged marriage and, instead, are creating a new marriage contract based on love, choice and equality in relations between women and men. This transformation, I argue, can be understood as a change in the social relations of production, whereby the marriage contract has shifted from relations of descent to consent (Sollors 1986). It will be shown that the new marriage contract represents a significant challenge to the gendered social order of Lebanese families and the reproduction of cultural identity in Australia.
Contributions to Management Science, 2019
The diversity of migration to Australia today and the shift to skilled migration render necessity... more The diversity of migration to Australia today and the shift to skilled migration render necessity-driven entrepreneurship an incomplete explanation of the motivations behind new patterns in immigrant entrepreneurship. This chapter presents the findings of a mixed-method comparative case study of entrepreneurial motivation amongst immigrant entrepreneurs in Australia. Qualitative and quantitative methodologies were utilised, including face-to-face interviews, thematic coding and descriptive statistics. The study found a preference for opportunity-driven entrepreneurship amongst participants in the study. Other factors included prior entrepreneurial experience, the desire for autonomy and opportunity recognition in the market and level of education. The four small business cases presented found a combination of skilled migration background, cultural and social capital and cultural values contributed to the entrepreneurs’ ability to identify opportunities. While one business catered to...
Women Rising
While the critical role of new media technologies in facilitating new social movements has been w... more While the critical role of new media technologies in facilitating new social movements has been widely debated, fewer studies have collected empirical data on online campaigns in the Arab uprisings or asked activists themselves their views on the efficacy of online versus offline modes of social mobilization. In this chapter, Nelia Hyndman-Rizk contributes to the conversation by comparing online and offline women’s rights activism in Lebanon and examining two campaigns that employ both modes of social mobilization. The chapter asks whether new media technology has enabled the Lebanese women’s movement to enter a new phase in its development.
International Perspectives on Gender and Higher Education
Mashriq & Mahjar Journal of Middle East and North African Migration Studies
Written at the intersection of theory and practice, this book explores how Lebanese immigrants ar... more Written at the intersection of theory and practice, this book explores how Lebanese immigrants are at home, or not, in Australia and contributes to the broader scholarly literature on the Lebanese migration experience. Drawing on ten years of research with Lebanese immigrants and their children, the authors explore their structural, phenomenological and dialogic relationship to the host nation. In order to do this, the authors fruitfully apply the theoretical model developed by Pierre Bourdieu to analyze how the accumulation of cultural, social and economic capital is converted, and/or lost, in their search for symbolic capital (i.e. national belonging) in Australia. Additionally, Bourdieu's concepts of the social field and habitus are creatively deployed in order to negotiate the classical dichotomy in the social sciences between social structure and individual agency or the objective and the subjective.
The Politics of Women and Migration in the Global South, 2017
This chapter explores the feminisation of emigration from Lebanon to Australia. Lebanon’s complex... more This chapter explores the feminisation of emigration from Lebanon to Australia. Lebanon’s complex migration history, combined with the increasingly restrictive immigration policies pursued globally, including in Australia, have resulted in the feminisation of the homeland emigration flows, on the one hand, and the masculinisation of the sites of immigration in the Diaspora, on the other hand, resulting in increasingly skewed gender ratios. This chapter provides a case study on the dynamics of arranged cousin marriages—which account for an increasingly large portion of female transnational brides arriving in Australia from Lebanon—and examines the impact of this form of female migration on family dynamics and asks if the feminisation of emigration is a progressive or regressive form of mobility.
Journal of Middle East Women's Studies
Labour and Management in Development, Mar 28, 2014
Gender and Education, 2018
ABSTRACT While expanding higher education is an important component of women’s agency development... more ABSTRACT While expanding higher education is an important component of women’s agency development, subsequent employment in the labour market remains an impediment to realising gender equality in many developing countries. In Bangladesh, while the rate of women’s higher education completion has steadily increased, employment has not kept pace, resulting in a paradox of declining female labour force participation rates amongst graduates. Therefore, this paper asks: Does higher education improve women’s agency development and empowerment in Bangladesh? This case study, on the experience of female students at a public women’s college in Northern Bangladesh, distinguishes between their instrumental and intrinsic empowerment and identifies key determinants and constraints for their agency development. The research found that female students improved their intrinsic, but not their instrumental empowerment, because of four factors: stereotyped subject selection, limited IT competence, a lack of relevant job skills and limited career aspirations. In order to improve gender equality, the study recommends greater educational investment to improve the quality of female higher education, so that graduates develop the capabilities to meet labour market requirements, thereby narrowing the gap between their agency development and labour force participation.
Journal of Intercultural Studies, 2016
ABSTRACT Although frequently debated in the media, few ethnographic studies have examined the dyn... more ABSTRACT Although frequently debated in the media, few ethnographic studies have examined the dynamics between arranged and love marriages in immigrant communities in Australia. Drawing on Sollors’ theory of Consent over Descent and Bourdieu’s theory of Masculine Domination, this paper examines the cultural transformation brought about by second-generation daughters in Maronite, Lebanese immigrant families from Hadchit who increasingly choose their own spouse based on love and gender equality. This paper theorises women as subjects, not objects of marriage and asks: how does cultural identity change when women have greater agency in the negotiation of marriage? The study finds three dialectical processes of social change. First, the relation of male domination between the sexes has been destabilised. Second, although marriage contracts based upon female consent have led to a growing preference for exogamous love marriages over endogamous arranged marriages within the village, religious endogamy has remained significant. Last, the study finds an overall decline in village identification; ‘Lebanese-Australian’ has become the most common form of cultural identification.
Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, 2019
Amid an enduring political deadlock in Parliament, the first civil marriage contracted in Lebanon... more Amid an enduring political deadlock in Parliament, the first civil marriage contracted in Lebanon in 2013 received significant media coverage in a country where the personal status law of eighteen recognized religious sects governs marriage. This case study examines the debate on civil marriage reform and the implications for women’s rights in Lebanon. For advocates, the recognition of civil marriage legalizes interreligious marriages, strengthens secular citizenship, shifts the jurisdiction of marriage from religious to civil law, and ensures women’s rights. Opponents, meanwhile, fear the loss of religious autonomy, the transformation of self-identification in Lebanon from sect to nation, and the destabilization of the confessional system. To date, civil marriage reform has been incremental, given clerical and social opposition, but the winds of change are blowing as couples increasingly take matters into their own hands to reform Lebanon’s system of personal status from the ground...
Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, 2019
Amid an enduring political deadlock in Parliament, the first civil marriage contracted in Lebanon... more Amid an enduring political deadlock in Parliament, the first civil marriage contracted in Lebanon in 2013 received significant media coverage in a country where the personal status law of eighteen recognized religious sects governs marriage. This case study examines the debate on civil marriage reform and the implications for women’s rights in Lebanon. For advocates, the recognition of civil marriage legalizes interreligious marriages, strengthens secular citizenship, shifts the jurisdiction of marriage from religious to civil law, and ensures women’s rights. Opponents, meanwhile, fear the loss of religious autonomy, the transformation of self-identification in Lebanon from sect to nation, and the destabilization of the confessional system. To date, civil marriage reform has been incremental, given clerical and social opposition, but the winds of change are blowing as couples increasingly take matters into their own hands to reform Lebanon’s system of personal status from the ground up.
Why do immigrants search out self-employment in small business and is this preference a matter of... more Why do immigrants search out self-employment in small business and is this preference a matter of choice or necessity? This puzzle has long been the subject of scholarly inquiry. In Australia Collins et al (1995), in the landmark study of immigrant 1 small business, A Shop Full of Dreams: Ethnic Small Business in Australia, found that, compared to the Australian born, minority immigrant groups were over represented in small business activity. Similarly, international studies find that small business is an important factor in the economic advancement of immigrants (Sanders & Nee, 1996) and that immigrants tend to be more highly represented amongst the self-employed than those born in the host society (OECD, 2010; Wayland, 2011). More recently, the Australian Bureau of Statistics similarly found 1 The term immigrant rather than ethnic will be used in this special edition and the focus will be on culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) businesses
The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology
This paper analyses the search for love and agency amongst second-generation Lebanese women in Au... more This paper analyses the search for love and agency amongst second-generation Lebanese women in Australia, who seek choice and equality in marriage, options they believe were not available to their own mothers. Second-generation daughters are rejecting the institution of arranged marriage and, instead, are creating a new marriage contract based on love, choice and equality in relations between women and men. This transformation, I argue, can be understood as a change in the social relations of production, whereby the marriage contract has shifted from relations of descent to consent (Sollors 1986). It will be shown that the new marriage contract represents a significant challenge to the gendered social order of Lebanese families and the reproduction of cultural identity in Australia.
Contributions to Management Science, 2019
The diversity of migration to Australia today and the shift to skilled migration render necessity... more The diversity of migration to Australia today and the shift to skilled migration render necessity-driven entrepreneurship an incomplete explanation of the motivations behind new patterns in immigrant entrepreneurship. This chapter presents the findings of a mixed-method comparative case study of entrepreneurial motivation amongst immigrant entrepreneurs in Australia. Qualitative and quantitative methodologies were utilised, including face-to-face interviews, thematic coding and descriptive statistics. The study found a preference for opportunity-driven entrepreneurship amongst participants in the study. Other factors included prior entrepreneurial experience, the desire for autonomy and opportunity recognition in the market and level of education. The four small business cases presented found a combination of skilled migration background, cultural and social capital and cultural values contributed to the entrepreneurs’ ability to identify opportunities. While one business catered to...
Women Rising
While the critical role of new media technologies in facilitating new social movements has been w... more While the critical role of new media technologies in facilitating new social movements has been widely debated, fewer studies have collected empirical data on online campaigns in the Arab uprisings or asked activists themselves their views on the efficacy of online versus offline modes of social mobilization. In this chapter, Nelia Hyndman-Rizk contributes to the conversation by comparing online and offline women’s rights activism in Lebanon and examining two campaigns that employ both modes of social mobilization. The chapter asks whether new media technology has enabled the Lebanese women’s movement to enter a new phase in its development.
International Perspectives on Gender and Higher Education
Mashriq & Mahjar Journal of Middle East and North African Migration Studies
Written at the intersection of theory and practice, this book explores how Lebanese immigrants ar... more Written at the intersection of theory and practice, this book explores how Lebanese immigrants are at home, or not, in Australia and contributes to the broader scholarly literature on the Lebanese migration experience. Drawing on ten years of research with Lebanese immigrants and their children, the authors explore their structural, phenomenological and dialogic relationship to the host nation. In order to do this, the authors fruitfully apply the theoretical model developed by Pierre Bourdieu to analyze how the accumulation of cultural, social and economic capital is converted, and/or lost, in their search for symbolic capital (i.e. national belonging) in Australia. Additionally, Bourdieu's concepts of the social field and habitus are creatively deployed in order to negotiate the classical dichotomy in the social sciences between social structure and individual agency or the objective and the subjective.
The Politics of Women and Migration in the Global South, 2017
This chapter explores the feminisation of emigration from Lebanon to Australia. Lebanon’s complex... more This chapter explores the feminisation of emigration from Lebanon to Australia. Lebanon’s complex migration history, combined with the increasingly restrictive immigration policies pursued globally, including in Australia, have resulted in the feminisation of the homeland emigration flows, on the one hand, and the masculinisation of the sites of immigration in the Diaspora, on the other hand, resulting in increasingly skewed gender ratios. This chapter provides a case study on the dynamics of arranged cousin marriages—which account for an increasingly large portion of female transnational brides arriving in Australia from Lebanon—and examines the impact of this form of female migration on family dynamics and asks if the feminisation of emigration is a progressive or regressive form of mobility.
Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, vol. 15, pp. 179 - 198, 2019
Amid an enduring political deadlock in Parliament, the first civil marriage contracted in Lebanon... more Amid an enduring political deadlock in Parliament, the first civil marriage contracted in Lebanon in 2013 received significant media coverage in a country where the personal status law of eighteen recognized religious sects governs marriage. This case study examines the debate on civil marriage reform and the implications for women’s rights in Lebanon. For advocates, the recognition of civil marriage legalizes interreligious marriages, strengthens secular citizenship, shifts the jurisdiction of marriage from religious to civil law, and ensures women’s rights. Opponents, meanwhile, fear the loss of religious autonomy, the transformation of self-identification in Lebanon from sect to nation, and the destabilization of the confessional system. To date, civil marriage reform has been incremental, given clerical and social opposition, but the winds of change are blowing as couples increasingly take matters into their own hands to reform Lebanon’s system of personal status from the ground up
Gender and Education , 2018
While expanding higher education is an important component of women's agency development, subsequ... more While expanding higher education is an important component of women's agency development, subsequent employment in the labour market remains an impediment to realising gender equality in many developing countries. In Bangladesh, while the rate of women's higher education completion has steadily increased, employment has not kept pace, resulting in a paradox of declining female labour force participation rates amongst graduates. Therefore, this paper asks: Does higher education improve women's agency development and empowerment in Bangladesh? This case study, on the experience of female students at a public women's college in Northern Bangladesh, distinguishes between their instrumental and intrinsic empowerment and identifies key determinants and constraints for their agency development. The research found that female students improved their intrinsic, but not their instrumental empowerment, because of four factors: stereotyped subject selection, limited IT competence, a lack of relevant job skills and limited career aspirations. In order to improve gender equality, the study recommends greater educational investment to improve the quality of female higher education, so that graduates develop the capabilities to meet labour market requirements, thereby narrowing the gap between their agency development and labour force participation.
Le Dr Nelia Hyndman-Rizk, anthropologue, est une référence concernant les migrants installés à Sy... more Le Dr Nelia Hyndman-Rizk, anthropologue, est une référence concernant les migrants installés à Sydney et originaires de la ville de Hadchit. Magazine l'a rencontrée pour discuter de son étude Pas de mariages arrangés ici: migration et changement de relations au sein de la diaspora libanaise. Combien de migrants libanais sont-ils originaires de Hadchit? Qu'ont-ils en commun avec les autres Libanais installés en Australie? Il y a environ 500 familles originaires de Hadchit, soit 3 000 personnes, installées dans l'ouest de Sydney. L'association villageoise est une forme courante d'organisation sociale chez les immigrants libanais en Australie. J'ai travaillé avec l'une des plus grandes associations, celle de Hadchit, et j'ai passé 12 mois à enquêter sur le terrain auprès de cette communauté immigrée. Ma famille a quitté Hadchit pour se rendre aux Etats-Unis dans les années
DIASPORA Dans l'ouest de Sydney, à Parramatta, des Libanais originaires de Hadchit ont fait leurs... more DIASPORA Dans l'ouest de Sydney, à Parramatta, des Libanais originaires de Hadchit ont fait leurs preuves dans divers domaines. Récemment, le sort non banal de ces familles a été évoqué dans les études de Nelia Hyndman-Rizk*.
Anthropology of the Middle East, Volume 7, Spring 2012: 89-92.
Mashriq and Mahjar: Journal of Middle East Migration Studies. Volume 1, 2013
Written at the intersection of theory and practice, this book explores how Lebanese immigrants ar... more Written at the intersection of theory and practice, this book explores how Lebanese immigrants are at home, or not, in Australia and contributes to the broader scholarly literature on the Lebanese migration experience. Drawing on ten years of research with Lebanese immigrants and their children, the authors explore their structural, phenomenological and dialogic relationship to the host nation. In order to do this, the authors fruitfully apply the theoretical model developed by Pierre Bourdieu to analyze how the accumulation of cultural, social and economic capital is converted, and/or lost, in their search for symbolic capital (i.e. national belonging) in Australia. Additionally, Bourdieu's concepts of the social field and habitus are creatively deployed in order to negotiate the classical dichotomy in the social sciences between social structure and individual agency or the objective and the subjective.
L'Hebdo Magazine
, anthropologue, est une référence concernant les migrants installés à Sydney et originaires de l... more , anthropologue, est une référence concernant les migrants installés à Sydney et originaires de la ville de Hadchit. Magazine l'a rencontrée pour discuter de son étude Pas de mariages arrangés ici: migration et changement de relations au sein de la diaspora libanaise. Combien de migrants libanais sont-ils originaires de Hadchit? Qu'ont-ils en commun avec les autres Libanais installés en Australie? Il y a environ 500 familles originaires de Hadchit, soit 3 000 personnes, installées dans l'ouest de Sydney. L'association villageoise est une forme courante d'organisation sociale chez les immigrants libanais en Australie. J'ai travaillé avec l'une des plus grandes associations, celle de Hadchit, et j'ai passé 12 mois à enquêter sur le terrain auprès de cette communauté immigrée. Ma famille a quitté Hadchit pour se rendre aux Etats-Unis dans les années 1890. Je suis donc officiellement une migrante de 4e génération, ayant maintenu des liens avec mon village d'origine. Je me suis installée en Australie en 1972. A u f i l d e s a n n é e s , l e s m i g r a n t s o n t c o n n u d e s t r a n s f o r m a t i o n s c u l t u r e l l e s. C o m m e n t l e s résumer? A la suite du processus de migration, beaucoup de transformations culturelles ont lieu permettant aux migrants de s'adapter à leur nouvelle vie. L'un des changements sociaux les plus importants qu'ils ont connus concerne la renégociation de leur identité culturelle. S'identifier comme un «Hadchiti» est supplanté par une identification culturelle plus large, celle d'être un Libano-Australien. Il y a également un autre changement culturel important à signaler. En 1950, une étude menée à Hadchit, portant sur le mariage, montrait que l'endogamie dans l'émigration était presque totale. Toutefois, ce qu'on constate récemment à Sydney c'est que, parmi les migrants nés ou élevés en Australie, les mariages entre cousins représentent seulement 25%. Pour la deuxième génération, 36,6% des mariages se font avec une personne d'origine libanaise et 38,4% avec des non-Libanais. Les nouvelles générations tiennent donc à faire des mariages d'amour… P o u r l a d e u x i è m e g é n é r a t i o n d e f e m m e s l i b a n a i s e s , i l y a u n e p r é f é r e n c e c r o i s s a n t e p o u r l e s m a r i a g e s d'amour. On cherche de plus en plus à établir un «nouveau contrat de mariage» fondé sur l'égalité des sexes et l'amour entre les partenaires. Certaines personnes mariées à leurs cousins considèrent qu'elles se lient par amour et qu'elles composent une famille heureuse. Pour d'autres, les mariages avec les cousins sont voués à l'échec, parce qu'un tel amour ne pouvait durer. La deuxième génération de femmes libanaises veut elle-même choisir son partenaire. Les migrantes ont tendance à se marier plus tardivement. L'âge a été reporté à la fin de la vingtaine. Elles ont plus tendance à poursuivre des études supérieures et à participer à la vie professionnelle. Théâtre Passeport No 10 452 en Afrique du Sud A p r è s M o n t r é a l , B e y r o u t h e t A t h è n e s , Passeport No 10 452 de Betty Taoutel atterrit sur les planches du théâtre de la Place Nelson M a n d e l a , à J o h a n n e s b u r g. L e s L i b a n a i s d ' A f r i q u e d u S u d , a v i d e s d ' e n t e n d r e l e u r l a n g u e m a t e r n e l l e , s o n t v e n u s n o m b r e u x a s s i s t e r à l a p i è c e. U n e r e n c o n t r e c u l t u r e l l e organisée par l'ambassade du Liban en Afrique du Sud, en coordination avec des membres de la communauté. Cette pièce de la dramaturge et actrice Betty Taoutel, destinée à la diaspora libanaise, est interprétée en majorité en dialecte libanais. Le duo Betty Taoutel-Hagop Der Ghoughassian nous fait passer du rire aux larmes avec subtilité. Y est abordé, avec humour, malice et sincérité, ce conflit éternel, partir ou rester, ressenti par maintes familles libanaises. Place à l'émotion. « J e r e m e r c i e l e s m e m b r e s d e l a c o m m u n a u t é q u i o n t d é p l o y é t o u s l e u r s e f f o r t s e n c o o r d i n a t i o n a v e c l ' a m b a s s a d e p o u r m e n e r à b i e n c e p r o j e t , a f f i r m e A r a K h a t c h a d o u r i a n , c h a r g é d ' a f f a i r e s a u p r è s d e l'ambassade du Liban en Afrique du Sud. Nous sommes très reconnaissants de pouvoir le ramener en Afrique du Sud (...)». La pièce, selon lui, «est une belle prise de conscience non seulement de l'émigration de la jeunesse libanaise, mais surtout de l'attachement que les Libanais ont pour leur pays». La veille de la représentation, l'ambassade du Liban avait donné une réception en l'honneur de Taoutel et de son équipe. P r o p o s r e c u e i l l i s p a r P a u l i n e M o u h a n n a