Student Activism for Socio-Political Change: Constructing a Secular Habitus in the American University of Beirut

Abstract: This thesis explores the activism of AUB students for social and political change promoting secularism on campus and in the Lebanese society and politics. It draws from 17 interviews, a focus group and observations during four months of fieldwork. It looks into the ways how members of the AUB Secular Club employ the notion of secularism, and how diversity in the AUB campus facilitates the collective action of the club. The data was approached using a mixed theoretical framework, which encompasses multiple secularities (Wohlrab-Sahr and Burchardt), transition points (Munson) and habitus (Bourdieu) as it is used by contemporary authors to understand social change. Two main arguments are identified in the data analysis of this thesis. First, by attaching a set of values and behaviors to the notion of secularity, the members of the Secular Club employ this notion to form a new secular habitus among youth in the Lebanese society and politics in response to political and social sectarianism. Second, the AUB campus enhances the activism of the Secular Club through its exposure to a variety of social groups and its interaction with them, and through the provision of a space without the usual networks of patronage where club members can form and practice their ideas about secularity.