Political Parenting in Colonial Lebanon

This article presents an analysis of the literature that situated childhood, politically, on the agenda of colonialists and anti-colonial nationalists in French Mandate Lebanon (1920-1943). By tracing certain debates, first, on what "the child" was conceptually in this highly heterogeneous social environment and, second, on the perceived urgency of shaping Lebanon's children and youth into citizens or into otherwise idealized adults, I elaborate on how childhood became a primary site through which power negotiations between the colonizer and the colonized took place. I conclude by demonstrating how parenting became a powerful political act for some Lebanese in the aftermath of the First World War, which not only reflected critical transformations in French-Lebanese relations but also contributed significantly to the process of state formation.