Shifting liminality : the practices of queer safety in Beirut.

Abstract

This thesis explores how safety in Anthropology is often focused around issues of institutional safety, such as the practices of aviation safety, agricultural safety or workplace safety culture. The anthropology of safety is explored with focus on specific communities which are engaging in creations of safety which can be more nuanced and productive when the concept of safety itself is the focus. This thesis asks what is safety and how is it created? Who determines its boundaries and its conditions, and how is it felt? This thesis explores the ways in which queer communities think of and construct issues of safety, visibility and policing. This ‘making’ has many dimensions. The methodology focused research on issues of safety, visibility and policing, engaged in by both queer communities and those in opposition to them.