This project questions the circulation of products, objects and substances to, from and within Lebanon. It integrates 6 surveys dealing respectively with objects of refuge, anxiolytic drugs, ethnic products, Armenian jewellery, Druze mate and, finally, glass and (re)construction materials. The heterogeneity of the materials studied allows us to approach diversified situations of relations to things (material cultures) and to people (social relations). In connection with human migrations, these circulations generate interactions and open spaces of negotiation and exchange within and between groups, in the context of generalized mobility that Lebanon is experiencing: mobility that concerns refugees and foreign migrants as much as the migrations and displacements of Lebanese people themselves. Each project seeks to trace the social biography of a thing, to observe its insertion in Lebanon and to understand how it mediates relations between people and groups. These elements connect Lebanon to international spaces through import channels and relations between groups in Lebanon and elsewhere through the play of diasporas (Armenia, Canada, France, Bangladesh, Palestine, Syria, etc.). Their deployment on national soil leads to reconfigurations of the relationships of otherness and reinforces the ethnic diversity of the city and its cosmopolitan dimension.
