A citizenship project: Lebanese youth’s insurgency in the wake of ‘Thawra’

Placed within a dramatically unstable and continuously changing context, this research paper will explore how the Lebanese youth is constantly rearticulating notions and rearticulations of refusal of the state and status-quo – starting with the wake of the October 2019’s uprisings, ‘Thawra’ , and throughout today’s ongoing crises. This study seeks to explore the fruits of years of youth civic activism (or the absence of it) – ironically, the same fruits of years of corrupt confessionalism – giving way to the reinvention of citizenships among youth, in practice and in ideas. The youth’s emerging citizenships will be explored as diverse and chaotic processes in a continuum, and mostly, insurgent. As such, the research allows us to look closer into youth articulations of refusal, activism and emerging citizenships to further build on the notion of insurgent citizenships “in the making”, over different spaces and temporalties. By looking closer at dynamics of organic civic initiatives, complexities of intergenerational politics and role of youth activism in Lebanon, this research will develop on three explorations: (1) the terms upon which this youth civic activism shaped and continued to form post-Thawra; (2) the processes and scope of emerging citizenships over various everyday civic dimensions; and (3) the notion of insurgent citizenships as well as pathways of change suggested by the youth.