10. PRIMORDIALISME DALAM HUBUNGAN TRANSNASIONAL: PERAN IDENTITAS DALAM MENDORONG ARUS PENGUNGSI SURIAH KE LEBANON, 2011 – 2014

Abstract

This research aims to determine why the Syrian refugees choose to seek shelters in
Lebanon and to analyze the role of identity on their influx to Lebanon. Lebanon has
become the second largest refugee host country in the world, receiving nearly 1,2 million
refugees as of 2014. In fact, Lebanon is a country with a limited economic capabilities
compounded by sectarian conflict, resource scarcity, and a political instability. From a
constructivist approaches, this researches argues that there are non-strategic considerations
that underlines the refugees' decision to travel across border to Lebanon, particularly the
presence of kinship, brotherhood, and common identities which underlies the openness for
refugees and a positive reception from the Lebanese people. Those primordial ties led to a
collaborative, integrative, and positive relations between people from two countries. This
research further proves a constructivist assumption that in transnational relations is not
merely driven by a rational considerations, but also in a non-rational aspect in this
particular case, under the basis of primordial ties.