“The War is Going to Ignite”: On the Anticipation of Violence in Lebanon

In this article, I elaborate on the constant anticipation of violence that runs deep within society in Lebanon. My objective is to think of the mundane locations of violence, and how we come to live the violence in and through ordinary times; my motivation here is to inquire into the different ways people experience war and its aftermath. I also explore the ways that violence is present and implicated in the ordinary rather than the two being mutually exclusive. The anticipation of violence becomes a way to think through regular mundane encounters of everyday life in states with protracted conflict. I analyze this anticipation of violence by looking at select ethnographic encounters from my fieldwork, and specifically during a time of sporadic bombings over several months in 2007 .