Resumen de Hosting and Being Hosted in Times of Crisis: Exploring the Multilayered Patterns of Syrian Refuge in the Dayr Al-Ahmar Region, Northern Bekaa, Lebanon
Emma Aubin-Boltanski, Leïla Vignal
This chapter addresses the dynamics and patterns of the Syrian refuge in Syria’s neighboring countries, and its relations and interactions with the local host communities, in the broader context of the Syrian conflict and the massive exile of Syrians abroad that resulted from it. The chapter is based on in-depth fieldwork in the villages of the Dayr al-Ahmar caza (sub-district) in the muhafaza (district) of Baalbek-Hermel, in the north of the Bekaa plain in Lebanon. Our research focused primarily on the three villages that have the highest concentration of Syrian refugees according to a local census carried out in April 2016 by some of the caza’s municipalities. To examine the dynamics of hosting and being hosted, as well as contributing to a more nuanced understanding of the relations between Lebanese and Syrian refugees in Lebanon, the authors chose to study the Syrian refuge through a local prism. The authors rooted their inquiry in the host–guest relationship in time—the contemporary history of Syrian–Lebanese relations—and space—the Bekaa plain that combines dense social transborder interactions between Lebanese and Syrians, in particular, through the decades-long Syrian circular labor migrations to Lebanon—with memories of Syria’s political and military domination over Lebanon.
