Reckoning with Clientelism and Violence in the Peripheral City

On the eve of October 17, 2019, Lebanon’s uprising spread to Tripoli, and for six months transformed its main roundabout, Al-Nour square, into a revolutionary space. With subjectivities forged by decades of clientelism, sectarianized modes of political participation, and anticipation of violence in daily life, pro-uprising revolutionaries sought alternatives by breaking away from the intuitive political practices that had guided most Trabulsis up to that point. This article discusses how experiences of violence and clientelism have structured how Trabulsis perceive everyday politics in their city. It then zooms into three repertoires of contention that Trabulsi revolutionaries took to protect their uprising from slipping into these known patterns. These repertoires include protecting the uprising from spoilers who would delegitimize the movement, actively countering narratives of sectarianization that had the potential of riling up Tripoli’s Sunni-majority protestors, and reckoning with the interplay of charity and clientelism in appealing to Tripoli’s working class

Anticipation (artificial intelligence) · Clientelism · Ethnography · Front (military) · Narrative · Politics · Middle East Politics and Society · Political Conflict and Governance · Turkey's Politics and Society