This is Lebanon’: Narrating Migrant Labor to Resistive Public

• In Event: Narrating Voice and Building Self on Digital and Social Media

Abstract

This paper focuses on the blogosphere surrounding migrant labor rights in Lebanon. Focusing on a new effort curated by the Nepalese activist Dipendra Uprety called “This is Lebanon” as an iteration of new media strategies by labor activists, this presentation interrogates how visual images are used towards the construction of voice alongside the translated testimonies of mostly female migrant laborers in Lebanon. These images -- of the laborer, her family, or her abuser, directly interpolate a resistant reading audience and work to arrest the invisibility of migrant labor. In a country that has refused to systematically address human and labor rights of migrant workers coming from within and outside the region, visual narratives have emerged in recent years as a central strategy for activists working to bring specific rights and labor issues into a public discourse that has long ignored these issues. This presentation works to connect these visual strategies to larger grassroots campaigns for migrant rights in Lebanon over the past decade.

Author

• Rayya El Zein, U of Pennsylvania