Conceiving Family Relationships in Post-War Lebanon

INTRODUCTION: WARAND CONCEIVINGFAMlLY RELATIONSHIPSHow family relationships are conceived, both materially and discursively, in the aftermath of war is critical for understanding the processes of construction and reconstruction of the "social" in times of turmoil. The active engagement of families with and response to long-term violence is a trigger for change in the gendered and aged relationships within patriarchal families. Under conditions when the "social" is challenged, social rules are destabilized, the expected is less certain, those living the social may see possibilities (for better or for worse) that were not as visible (or extant) previously. Their discourse of themselves becomes a site for sensing the possible. The ways in which family members represent family relationships, in these moments, provides a telling story of emergent changes within family systems, coming changes which might not be as evident observationally. Their discourses capture their insights into the cracks and crevices from which tectonic shifts may follow. They may sense the tremors of change coming before the behaviors manifest themselves. Such discourses, which may not necessarily correspond to what an anthropologist observes, might be dismissed as misrepresentations. Alternatively, the discourses may be taken as registers to be recorded, calibrated and remembered later when we can look back and assess their meanings. As family relationships are crucial to social institutions in most Middle Eastern countries, shifts within family relationships have repercussions throughout society. How families conceive of their relationships in the aftermath of war is often under analyzed, however, as the need for large scale national reconstruction overshadows, particularly in small villages, the day-to-day lived needs of spouses, parents, children and extended kin. The project of this paper, is to record and calibrate such registers of emergent change in family relationships in a small village, just east of Beirut, in the immediate aftermath of the cessation of the Civil War which raged in Lebanon from 1975-1990.My research with families in the small village of Yusfiyyi (fictitious name) reveals a simultaneous strengthening and undermining of families. More interesting and curious was my finding that discourses of family relationships among the villagers often differed markedly ' from what I found in my observations among these families. I observed intact families, which were intensely involved in each other's affairs and well-being. Family members, however, reported mothers "nervous", youth disrespectful, family members confused about familial responsibilities. I recorded a rather stunning degree of commitment to and involvement with family in Yusfiyyi, albeit, in many ways, a shifting and changing set of practices. Yet, many interviewees saw the family "in crisis". The crisis in family relations perceived and reported by many of the interviewees partly reflects their views on Lebanese society, as opposed to their own families, which they largely saw as strong. The disparity in my observations and their discourses emerges in part, then, from the fact that I was observing "their" families, while they were talking about "the family" in Lebanon. The intensity of family life 1 observed may be an expression of their will and efforts to hold on to family relationships as they knew them prior to the war, in the face of challenges to those relationships they saw in the society at large. Indeed, during the 1990s to the present, there have been heated public debates about the nature of the family and the "social" in the aftermath of war in Lebanon.The discourses are particularly interesting in that they focus on women and children and youth. The refrain repeated was that mothers are "burned out" and "nervous" and that children and youth have been "corrupted" by war. The focus on women, children, and youth emerged despite the fact that 1 asked about all the key family relationships. …