The best of hard times : Palestinian refugee masculinities in Lebanon /

Barbosa (Federal Fluminense Univ., Brazil) elegantly and astutely blends two years of ethnographic research among Palestinian and other Arab residents of the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut with a critical "diseducation" of structural concepts such as agency, gender, generation, power, and the state. Using innovative contexts and techniques for interviews and what he refers to as "nonparticipant observation," Barbosa focuses his analysis on young men, or shabab, who are typically underemployed and impoverished, lack the means for houses or families of their own, and do not have personal connections to the heroism of the past, present-day access to power, or realistic expectations for a better future. Through their everyday lives and experiences, Barbosa demonstrates how shabab have learned to live without state institutions and resources and how they "come of age today and display their sex belonging" in ways that contrast with the revolutionary experiences of their fathers' generation but also without a sense of emasculation because of their powerlessness. Eschewing Western hegemonic notions of dominance and power, shabab masculinities are multifaceted and fluid, emphasizing difference without implicating hierarchy and located within a particular time and place, specifically under the dire conditions of life in contemporary Lebanon. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals. --Bahram Tavakolian, emeritus, Denison University