Erratum

[The paragraph below was inadvertantly dropped from Nadine Naber's article, "Transnational Families under Siege: Lebanese Shi'a in Dearborn, Michigan, and the 2006 War on Lebanon," in the last issue of JMEWS (5:3), page 147, following line 1, "...in planning solidarity events with Lebanese people."]

I show that the transnational character of southern Lebanese families connected these interlocutors to Lebanon in a familial sense and inspired a sense of belonging to transnational families under siege. I then explore how the particular character of the invasion, in which "every" Lebanese had some family member who was affected by it, inspired a sense of belonging to a transnational Lebanese family under siege, which set the stage for an intensification of long-distance Lebanese nationalisms in Dearborn.⁴ I use the term "nationalism" to refer to a shared sense of peoplehood or an "imagined community" bound together by a common linguistic, cultural, and historical heritage.⁵ Concepts of nationalism took on particular form in this diasporic context and were linked to the political project of building or defending Lebanon; resisting U.S. (and Israeli) policies in Arab nations; and unifying in the face of anti-Arab racism in the U.S. I use the term "long-distance nationalism" to refer to how this sense of peoplehood extended beyond the territorially based boundaries of nation-states.⁶ My research demonstrates that the concept of "family" worked to naturalize particular gender constructs within the ideology of long-distance Lebanese nationalism. The practice of "comfort mothering," for example, met the emotive needs of a diaspora engaging with a homeland war from a distance, and expanded the social codes of mothering beyond the domain of extended kin.