Rethinking Lebanese welfare in ageing emergencies

Abstract

A cycle of internal displacement and infl uxes of refugees in Lebanon has led local care providers to cooperate and partner with the international humanitarian apparatus. By using welfare as an explanatory screen of social relations, identifi cations, and frictions, this chapter highlights the blurred lines between welfare and emergency programmes in Beirut’s southern suburbs after the July War of 2006. This chapter fi rst discusses how social order is sought out in humanitarian and welfare systems of care in order to maintain stability and guarantee their practices. Second, it unearths the individual and societal processes that benefi ciary subjects experience in response to policies of provision. Finally, it seeks to assess the notion of nationhood in Lebanon, where the lives of long-term refugees and local communities are increasingly enmeshed, as are the benefi ciary categories that they represent.