Argentinians of Lebanese descent in the globalised world

In order to understand the living together of people in times of growing global migration and information flows, it is important to understand the dynamics of global social orders, such as communities. This investigation of Argentinians of Lebanese descent aims to demonstrate how communities are constructed by people who claim to be completely integrated into their host society, while at the same time main taining an independent collective identity. This study shows that communities are established by the creation of socio-material orders which Sloterdijk calls “spheres”. Emotional ties between their members and towards meaningful artefacts are the bases of cohesion in these spheres. Sloterdijk refers to this special nexus of emotional ties as “atmosphere”, and as their basis is commonly viewed as having a common country of origin the spheres will be labelled “ethnic spheres”. My approach to this problem employs qualitative interviews and participative observations collected during a six-month stay in Argentina.