working-class women's networks in a sectarian state: a political paradox

Abstract

Working-class women in Camp Trad, Lebanon, created networks cutting across Lebanese, Palestinian, Syrian, Christian, Muslim, and other national, religious, ethnic, and cultural affiliations to create a genuine, local-level political culture and to carry out politically legitimate functions. These heterogeneous networks challenged sectors of the Christian ruling class. Performing essential service, order, and linkage functions; transforming the participants' values, identities, and behavior; and boding a potential for unified identity and action at a historical conjuncture in which sectarianism was being contested; the intersectarian character of the networks threatened the sectarian ideology of leadership. The predominantly Christian sectarian establishment, simultaneously faced with national and regional social, economic, and political unrest, attacked key mixed and Muslim-dominated neighborhoods, destroying the women's heterogeneous networks. [women, working class, networks, sectarianism, Lebanon] CR - Copyright © 1983 American Anthropological Association