ICS Seminar Series 2013

Paul Tabar, Lebanese American University, present 'Expanding the Concept of Political Remittances: The Case of the Lebanese-Australians during the 2009 Elections in Lebanon'.

Abstract: This paper examines a particular event that occurred in Australia within the Australian-Lebanese community: it is the political mobilisation of a substantial number of this community to participate in the general elections that took place in Lebanon in June 2009. This event is analysed by looking into the various components of what we call ‘the Lebanese diasporic public sphere’.

It is argued that this diasporic public sphere generates different political views and positions entertained by various members of the Australian-Lebanese community and materialized into specific ‘political remittances’ sent to Lebanon.

Finally, analysing the impact of this political transfer to Lebanon is made in terms of a broader discussion of ‘political remittances’ as represented in the current literature.

Biography: Paul Tabar is the director of the Institute for Migration Studies and an Associate Professor in Sociology/Anthropology at the Lebanese American University, Beirut campus. He is co-author of 'On Being Lebanese in Australia: Identity, Racism and the Ethnic Field' (Institute for Migration Studies, LAU, 2010), 'Bin Laden in the Suburbs: Criminalising the Arab Other' (Institute of Criminology, 2004) and 'Kebabs, Kids, Cops and Crime: Youth, Ethnicity and Crime' (Pluto Australia, 2000), and has published many articles on Lebanese and Arab migrants in international journals. He is currently working on Lebanese diasporic communities and their diasporic public activities, a 3 year project funded by IDRC. All required fieldwork has been completed and work is now focused on analyzing collected data.