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  • The Circle of Bare Life

    Rights statement: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Politics, Religion and Idealogy on 08/03/2017, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/21567689.2017.1297236

    Accepted author manuscript, 304 KB, PDF document

    Available under license: CC BY-NC: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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The Circle of Bare Life: Hizballah, Muqawamah and Rejecting ? Being Thus?

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>05/2017
<mark>Journal</mark>Politics, Religion and Ideology
Issue number1
Volume18
Number of pages22
Pages (from-to)1-22
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date8/03/17
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

This article explores the emergence of Hizballah, the Party of God, and the development of its ideas of resistance at a local and regional level. It begins by considering the emergence of Hizballah and the Lebanese context through the lens of Giorgio Agamben’s work on bare life. It suggests that these conditions existed in Lebanon—amidst the Shi’a community—and asks how people came together to reject the condition of ‘being thus’. Conventional approaches suggest that this occurred through Hizballah’s ideas of resistance, yet this has largely been under-conceptualized. To do this, it looks at the role of the Karbala Narrative in helping the group draw support from Shi’a Muslims in Lebanon, while also locating itself at the vanguard of resistance in the Middle East. With the emergence of Da’ish in the summer of 2014, this position was challenged. By reflecting on speeches from prominent Hizballah figures, the severity of the threat can be seen, justifying the Party of God’s involvement in Syria. It concludes by arguing that the need to maintain its geopolitical influence has required military action in Syria, which has ultimately led to the creation of bare life.

Bibliographic note

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Politics, Religion and Idealogy on 08/03/2017, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/21567689.2017.1297236