UNIFIL’s “Blue Line” Demarcation: Spatial Ordering, Political Subjectivity, and Settler Colonialism in South Lebanese Borderlands

Abstract

This article offers an ethnographic account of ongoing border conflicts in south Lebanon between members of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and residents in a south Lebanese border village. It emphasizes the specific experiences of this border population with foreign intervention and land expropriations. It places UNIFIL’s current intervention in a long history of Western imperialism in the region. It underlines how UNIFIL weakens the Lebanese state by taking over the sovereign functions a state typically performs. It examines current border contestations in a context of Israeli settler colonialism and its long-term role in shaping the livelihoods in south Lebanese border villages. It argues for the importance of understanding border conflicts and the work of international interventions in their specific local and historical contexts.