Contrapuntal Citizenship: Solidarity Protests and Multi-layered Belonging in the Lebanese Diaspora in France

Abstract

ABSTRACT Normative models of citizenship delimit rights and obligations within the territorial boundaries of the modern state. These models fail to capture how political belonging can be stretched and reconfigured across polities. The 2019 ‘17 October Revolution’ in Lebanon galvanised widespread solidarity protests and initiatives in the Lebanese diaspora in France. As sites of cultural encounter, solidarity protest movements in the diaspora created opportunities for different cultural and political identities to collide, producing ‘contrapuntal’ forms of citizenship. Drawing insights from Edward Said’s examination of the ‘contrapuntal,’ this paper argues that as sites of encounter, diasporic solidarity initiatives pluralised definitions of political belonging producing contrapuntal forms of citizenship. By thinking through music, this paper will examine the overlapping layers, or melodies, of political belonging that constitute diasporic citizens. It will contend that diaspora solidarity initiatives allowed activists to enact multiple, sometimes contradicting, claims to belonging. In doing so, it will shift from hybrid to contrapuntal models of diasporic citizenship.