SECTARIAN TRANSACTIONS IN A FRAGMENTED LEBANON

This chapter considers the case of land transaction in a South Lebanese Christian enclave in a Shia area. His ethnography is based on fieldwork that lasted eight years. The local dimension of the conflict builds upon deep-seated customary laws as locals oppose an inter-religious transaction. The threat of violence is used to defend a religious identity and is represented as the only way to impose the villagers’ model of conformity. Socio-cultural and political aims clash, making the issue intractable as the transaction is framed within problems of homogeneity and exclusion and contextualised to include a changing geo-political scenario. To insert another dimension, the land in question is close to the Israeli border. This carries complexities that go beyond the initial issue of a loan, the reason the land was sold regardless of any damage the seller could cause to his community, as the amount paid could not be justified by any construction-motivated intentions. Mollica argues that the village mirrors the controversies of present consociational Lebanon, where national means to assert social control encounter local customary law.