The master cockroach: scrap metal and Syrian labour in Beirut’s informal economy

In Lebanon, where over one million Syrians have taken refuge in the last five years, the informal sector has risen dramatically, particularly in the capital Beirut. Yet, the informal economy is not a recent phenomenon in Beirut and Syrian labour has long contributed to it. With the accelerated rate at which the informal sector has increased, new features that are distinctive to conflict and displacement are arising out of the interface with the formal sphere. In this article, I explore from an anthropological perspective some of the tensions that surface due to encounters between Lebanese residents who belong to informal political networks in a working class neighbourhood in Beirut and Syrian workers at a local informal scrapyard that specializes in salvaging different types of scrap metal from discarded items in Lebanon’s garbage. By taking an ethnographic approach to studying the informal economy, this article looks at some of the ways in which tensions within a community can facilitate the social reproduction of a disparately unequal labour regime in the country. In the case of this particular neighbourhood, narratives of social inequality were often centred on the cockroach, at once a pest and a heroic figure—and whose fate rests on its ability to remain obscure and out of sight.11 I wish to thank the following people for their engagement during fieldwork and the writing of this article: Adrien Zaker, Astrid Meier, Rita, Sakr, Torsten Wollina, Muzna al Masri, Till Grallert, Veronica Ferreri, Caroline Kinj, Ghassan Elias (for the tanak), Kathleen Saleh, Michelle Obeid, Matthias Kloft. I am grateful to the two anonymous reviewers whose comments were most helpful. My gratitude to Master Cockroach, his team and residents of Jisr al Zeitun for their hospitality and generosity.