A life with birds: the ethnography of a passion for pigeon keeping (Lebanon)
Aubin-Boltanski, Emma
A life with birds: the ethnography of a passion for pigeon keeping (Lebanon) - 2021.
80
Based on an ethnography carried out in a Beirut slum, this article focuses on pigeon-keeping ( kashsh ḥamām in Arabic). To explain its practice in this urban setting, the study applies Clifford Geertz’s conceptual framework related to social semantics to understand how the practice of pigeon-keeping is used to convey the narrative of their owners’ self-disclosure and to describe their semi-permanent existence as refugees. Nonetheless, the kashsh ḥamām cannot be reduced to a simple reflection of social reality; it also constitutes a space-time where men allow themselves to dream of a world other than the one in which they are “encaged”.
A life with birds: the ethnography of a passion for pigeon keeping (Lebanon) - 2021.
80
Based on an ethnography carried out in a Beirut slum, this article focuses on pigeon-keeping ( kashsh ḥamām in Arabic). To explain its practice in this urban setting, the study applies Clifford Geertz’s conceptual framework related to social semantics to understand how the practice of pigeon-keeping is used to convey the narrative of their owners’ self-disclosure and to describe their semi-permanent existence as refugees. Nonetheless, the kashsh ḥamām cannot be reduced to a simple reflection of social reality; it also constitutes a space-time where men allow themselves to dream of a world other than the one in which they are “encaged”.
Réseaux sociaux