While there is a growing anthropological interest in professionals as experts and powerful actors, there is little ethnographic inquiry into invocations of professionalism by less privileged communities. This article examines how professionalism in Lebanon was increasingly appropriated by low-income communities in ways not referring to any particular profession or occupational domain. As a locally defined category, professionalism indexed an urban middle-class subjectivity of performing specific sets of symbolic capital, moral dispositions, and cross-sectarian relationalities. Lebanese civil society, led by middle-class cultural elites, promoted professionalism as a moral alternative to reliance on wāsṭa (intermediary connections through family or kinship), a practice associated with a corrupt sectarian political system. What I call aspirant professionals – young, low-income, university-educated Lebanese – increasingly participated in empowerment NGOs to learn professionalism in pursuit of social mobility and respectability. Aspirant professionals did not simply emulate the middle-class culture of professionalism; rather, their class-making process generated its own moralities, subjectivities, and practices. Through a critical examination of aspirant professional subjectivity, this article contributes to anthropological studies on professionalism, NGOs, and class.

中文翻译：

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Bala wāsṭa：有抱负的专业人士、阶级塑造和黎巴嫩社会流动的道德叙事

虽然人类学对作为专家和强大行动者的专业人士的兴趣日益浓厚，但很少有人对特权较低的社区援引专业精神进行人种学调查。本文探讨了黎巴嫩的专业精神如何越来越多地被低收入社区以不涉及任何特定职业或职业领域的方式占用。作为一个本地定义的类别，专业化指数化了城市中产阶级的主体性，他们表现出特定的象征资本、道德倾向和跨宗派关系。由中产阶级文化精英领导的黎巴嫩民间社会提倡专业精神，以此作为依赖wāsṭa的道德替代品（通过家庭或亲属关系的中介联系），一种与腐败的宗派政治制度相关的做法。我称之为有抱负的专业人士——年轻、低收入、受过大学教育的黎巴嫩人——越来越多地参与赋权非政府组织，以学习专业精神，以追求社会流动性和受人尊敬。有抱负的专业人士不只是效仿中产阶级的专业文化；相反，他们的阶级形成过程产生了自己的道德、主体性和实践。通过对有抱负的职业主体性的批判性考察，本文有助于人类学对职业精神、非政府组织和阶级的研究。