Abstract

This is a case study i based on f ieldwork
research carried out in 1980-1981 and 1986-1987 among the
inhabitants of Haouch Moussa (IAnjar) a Lebanese
Armenian community in the Bekala valley of Lebanon. The
study itself cons~itutes a reconstruction of the practices
and experiences (and their genesis) of the people in
question, as Lebanese and Armenians {and therefore, of my
own history as a Lebanese and an Armenian (and a woman)}.
The settlement itself was established in 1939 by Ar~ènian
refugees deported from their original habitat in Mount
Moussa, the Sanjak of Iskandaroun (Turkey). l\Then
relocated in the Central Bekala, the inhabitants initiated
a collectivisation experiment. However, it was brought to
an end shortly after Lebanese Independence. During the
following decades, while the socialist ideology has
persisted the individual households have at first become
petty commodi ty producers for a regional, national and
international market, and later through the dynamics ofpetty commodity production, capitalism, and the effects
of the civil war in Lebanon further transformations have
occurred. This thesis examines these transformations and
attempts to translate the dynamics of the reality of the
inhabitants of 'An jar into anthropological discourse.