MANAGING IDENTITIES AMONG EXPATRIATE BUSINESSMEN ACROSS THE SYRIAN-LEBANESE BOUNDARY

Abstract

The chapter aims at examining the process of construction/deconstruction of the Lebanese-Syrian border from the point of view and through the practices of one group of actors whose contribution to the process can be considered strategic. The group concerned is made up of the Syrian businessmen who had left Syria since the creation of the United Arab Republic in February 1958 and had settled, and prospered, in Lebanon. Choosing a non-governmental actor in order to analyse the international boundary separating Lebanon from Syria imposed itself. In most of the studies already available on the subject, the boundary has been examined in a classic international relations perspective privileging the state, and even more in a narrow governmental perspective, thus ignoring complex processes and dynamics. Also, analysing the distinction between Lebanon and Syria by means of the examination of businessmen's representations and strategies allows us to bridge the gap between international relations and political economy, and possibly to throw light on the domestic structures that make the specificity of each state with regard to the other