Practicing Sectarianism

This volume brings together essays by historians and anthropologists that examine sectarianism as a guiding principle in many settings. The contributors look at sites in Lebanon and among Lebanese diaspora communities, spanning several historical periods. Their work shows the varied ways the concept is put to use to display identity, to imagine community, and to push back against it.

The essays ask what emotional pull sectarianism exerts on individuals and groups, what kinds of knowledge the idea organizes, and how it signals social difference. Each chapter studies everyday interaction to show that people respond to sectarianism in different ways. Some resist it, some avoid it, and some use it deliberately, with a range of outcomes. The collection treats sectarianism as something both constructed and lived: a shifting, hard-to-pin-down idea that nonetheless has concrete consequences.

Although Lebanon is the central focus, the analysis separates sectarianism from its usual link to the nation-state and suggests that its insights can apply to other places. The book argues that sectarianism can only be fully understood and dismantled once it is taken seriously as a practice.