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South Lebanon’s Contested Areas: Identity Shaping in Political Discourses
Abstract
The political use of borderlands is generally common in most areas of the world. In Lebanon, there are numerous political declarations about the Southern border, underlying a concern for the sake of the national sovereignty (on land but also on sea and in air). If all these statements acknowledge Israel as the principal enemy of the country, the contested areas that are at stake on land (Shebaa Farms) and on sea are used by several political groups for different purposes, when airspace violations tended to produce self-interests counter measures from Hizbullah. As borders are also discourses that tended to create bordered spaces in shaping mental maps, this paper would like to analyze political statements as part of an "illusio" of the field of politics (Bourdieu). Analysing such statements and their actions on the ground will help to understand the way each of them are using the southern border issues, unfolding “their” national vision or at least their political interests. This research will rely on an extensive fieldwork in Lebanon and observations conducted at different moment during the past ten years and the cross examination of political actors’ statements as leading forces taking part in state government, be there from 8 or 14 March. This means that each of them has to incarnate, during a period of time, the State vision and so took part in the definition of Lebanon’s sovereignty. Three dimensions of the national borders will be under scrutiny: the disputed borderland of the Shebaa Farms, the maritime delineation dispute with Israel since Lebanese government define its EEZ and the national airspace sovereignty that Israel regularly violates. This paper will try to sustain the idea that the different political uses of these three border issues highlight the lack of a common vision about the Nation and reveal the sectarian interests and so the “national identities” that cohabited in Lebanon.
Discipline
Sociology
Geographic Area
Lebanon
Sub Area
Identity/Representation