Paper short abstract:

The Beirut blast of 4 August 2020 brought accounts of acute mental suffering of the Lebanese to the global stage. This paper argues for a deeper dive into compounding economic, political, and public health-related crises to better understand the mental health needs of post-disaster Lebanon.

Paper long abstract:

Following the 4 August 2020 Beirut blast, humanitarian organizations attempted to provide mental healthcare in response to acute disaster. Relying on a linear and causal understanding that is inherent to Western paradigms of trauma, this understanding of the Lebanese reaction to disaster was concerningly reductive, ignoring the compounding crises that were devastating Lebanon before the blast and were only exacerbated after: a traumatizing civil war in the 1970s-1980s with lingering sociopolitical chaos, a failed revolution and continuing economic decline since 2019, and a crippling of Lebanon’s healthcare system only exacerbated by COVID-19.

In this paper, I propose a case study of compounding crises: Lebanon as it exists in a post-civil war, post-explosion, and peri-pandemic state of disaster. In particular, working within the context of mental health-related humanitarian efforts, I argue for a critical exploration of how compounding crises as experienced by our interlocutors complicate anthropological inquiry and, in this case, psychiatric care that aims to address widespread mental unwellness.

Using an interview-based approach, I focus on the experience of healthcare providers from two Beirut hospitals that serve as “microcosms” of the nation. Through their stories, I aim to contextualize the blast and its psychosocial effects within a complex "necropolitical" history of Lebanon in which past and present ruptures interweave. By highlighting the diverse ways that my interlocutors have addressed their own mental unwellness as caused by multiple factors instead of one, I conclude by arguing for an anthropologically inspired model to holistic, socially informed psychiatric care.