Oxford, 2022
The affective dimension of the future is what guides the present and the past. What happens when people are not able to imagine a future? Amid Lebanon’s severe economic crisis, communities in the northern towns of Zgharta and Kosba are in a state of collective temporal disorientation. Coffee cup divination, one of the most common types of divination techniques in the area, has become more relevant amid this ‘time of crisis’.
Submitted in fulfillment of the degree of MSc in Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford, the research manuscript argues that in this context of temporal disorientation, divination serves as a teleoaffective system that alleviates the clients’ anxiety about living in a country ‘with no future’. It enables clients to anticipate their individual futures in a context of collective political and economic uncertainty.
The manuscript is currently under peer review for publication.
Marc Ghazali 