Brothers, Workers or Syrians? The Politics of Naming in Lebanese Municipalities

Abstract Displaced Syrians in Lebanon face a multitude of legal, social and political categories that operate together to structure their lives and opportunities. One important site of juxtaposition of these various categories can be found in the area of municipal governance, namely in the form of bannered discriminatory curfews that line the public squares of many of Lebanon’s urban neighbourhood, towns and villages. The various named ‘targets’ of these curfews—whether foreigners, Syrians, displaced, labourers, brothers or the disembodied ‘motorbike’ (a class marker in this context)—instantiate the complexity of issues of Syrian belonging in this context. This article examines these categories through their historical, political and social dimensions, and through the lived experience of Syrians who encounter, negotiate and—at times—resist them. Building on over a year of fieldwork in Lebanon from October 2015 to December 2016, this article relies on a diverse set of sources, including ethnographic observation, documents and interviews with a wide array of actors including Lebanese citizens and displaced Syrians, mayors and municipal police officers, as well as lawyers, journalists, aid workers and central government officials.