[LCM Articles] INVESTIGATING MIGRATION: LERC

[Nehme Lebbos]

INVESTIGATING MIGRATION: LERC
7 October 2007, by Jasmina Najjar
http://www.iloubnan.info/Investigating-Migration-LERC

LERC (Lebanese Emigration Research Center) at NDU recently released its 
latest study on “Insecurity, Migration and Return Following The Summer 
2006 War in Lebanon.” This was the second phase of a previous study that 
focused on the Summer 2006 Evacuation. The full report is currently 
posted on the European Union’s Consortium for Applied Research on 
International Migration’s website (www.carim.org). The study focuses on 
insecurity as a significant factor contributing towards ‘forced 
migration’ and dissuading migrants to return to Lebanon. Economic, 
societal and political insecurity were all defined and taken into 
consideration. The study encompassed 460 Lebanese residents, 74 
migrants, 19 experts, 2 embassies and two immigration services and 
focused exclusively on the period after the Summer 2006 War. The survey 
revealed that 60.5% want to emigrate while 39% said they had no wish to 
emigrate. Of the migrants living abroad, 73.2% have no plans to return 
to Lebanon in the next 5 years.

Guita Hourani (LERC’s Associate Director) and Dr. Eugene Richard 
Sensenig-Dabbous (Assistant Professor and LERC’s Research Associate) 
speak candidly to iLoubnan about LERC in general and their latest study. 
They both uncover the main reasons such research caught their interest. 
LERC was established 4 years ago. Migration has been around for 30 years 
but they needed a pivotal starting point, like the overwhelming July 
war, to provide an opportunity. Interest in Lebanon was low until the 
assassination of Rafic Hariri, the Cedar Revolution and other events 
which created a heightened interest in the country. LERC initially began 
conducting a study on money being sent to Lebanon that was supposed to 
be published last summer but the sudden war brought an abrupt halt to 
this. So Hourani and Dr. Sensenig-Dabbous decided to take the initiative 
of studying the evacuation even though they didn’t have funding. The 
survey involved around 40 people who had been evacuation and placed an 
emphasis on the human aspects of evacuation (the devastation, 
psychological impact, feelings…) and had a brief summary of the 
political situation before the war (a literature review). The evacuation 
study was published in hard back in October 2006 and was sent to the 
people who had wanted to fund the interrupted study on money sent to 
Lebanon who hence offered to fund the study on Insecurity and Migration.

“Many love Lebanon but Lebanon is not providing them with security.”
The study on Insecurity and Migration was supposed to be based on a 
sample of 800 participants, but the ‘war’ didn’t stop…as Hourani puts 
it: “it shifted from a physical war to a political one in the form of 
assignations, sit-ins….” The post war crisis is the cause of the high 
emigration rates and the low return rates. The war was a trigger, but as 
Dr. Sensenig-Dabbous states: “now it is a problem generated from within 
the country and not from an external aggressor.” September 2006 was a 
period of relief and a positive ‘let’s rebuild’ attitude but then in 
October the tide started to change and problems set in. Dr. 
Sensenig-Dabbous asserted: “If the political situation sorts itself out, 
then the economic situation would sort itself out. Lebanon has the 
potential to improve its economy.” And Hourani declared: “Many love 
Lebanon but Lebanon is not providing them with security.”

Questionnaires were collected from the end of September until 11 
December 2006. It is very interesting because indirect questions were 
devised to ascertain gender factors. This revealed that women wanted to 
emigrate because of the lack of physical security, whereas men 
attributed their desire to leave to issues of financial security. 
Studying migration’s relation to men is a far rarer practice than 
focusing on women and migration…and migration studies on Lebanon are 
also very rare. Between 1975 and 2001, only 2 studies were published 
followed by no studies at all until LERC started its benchmark work.

Many young professionals and skilled workers are leaving the country
UNICEF has approached Hourani and the Goethe Institute has approached 
Dr. Sensenig-Dabbous to study the youth brain drain that is currently 
gripping Lebanon. Many young professionals and skilled workers are 
leaving the country, hence creating a severe lack of qualified and 
experienced people. Before, mainly young men where going to work abroad, 
but now many women are following suit. Most companies in Lebanon are 
finding it difficult to fill certain positions, for instance we now 
frequently hear that an engineering firm couldn’t find a properly 
qualified electrical engineer, or an architecture firm couldn’t find an 
architect with 4 years of experience or an advertising agency couldn’t 
find a decent art director or copywriter. Even finding a good 
electrician or mechanic is much harder than it used to be. These render 
this an issue of significant import. Hourani said: “The young want to 
stay if they were hired on merit without nepotism and were provided with 
more stability and opportunities.”

LERC has numerous plans in the pipeline. They are hoping to build a 
database from the 1800s till the present called Project LEAD (Lebanese 
Emigration Archive and Database). They also presented a white paper on 
absentee voting and are active in generating interest towards this cause 
despite the current political players’ lack of interest. But some 
progress has been made because for the first time, stakeholders, 
organizations, think tanks etc. all participated in presenting proposals 
on how the Lebanese Diaspora can vote.

Jurassic Park
LERC are faced with an ever shifting situation with makes it 
substantially difficult to deal with sensitive issues. It’s a tricky job 
at times with some attempted studies having to be postponed or even 
scrapped. For instance, LERC tried to do the first study in 30 years on 
the Christians from villages in the South but encountered certain 
set-backs and delays which forced them to leave the project unfinished. 
As Dr. Sensenig-Dabbous said jokingly: “we call our center Jurassic Park 
because at times we feel much like the scientists in the movie with the 
dinosaurs they are trying to study, trying to eat them.” Funding is an 
issue sometimes but getting the research data itself is a veritable 
challenge. Conducting field work in Lebanon has always been difficult 
and lately the random bombs are making things even more problematic. But 
LERC is still trying to fulfill its mission without letting obstacles 
put on damper on things. Migration is nothing new to Lebanon but 
studying this matter with all its intricacies and changing factors sheds 
light on the Lebanese experience and is a noteworthy endeavor. Hopefully 
one day LERC will have the opportunity to study a massive influx of 
people coming back to settle in Lebanon rather than the present harsh 
reality of people dreaming of leaving…