Against what they considered the immoral politics of sectarianism, leading activists in Lebanon in the 2010s combined entrepreneurialism and activism to animate systemic change and build an effective nation‐state. In doing so, they created an ethicopolitical subjectivity that I call entrepreneurial activism. Entrepreneurial activists articulated an ethical politics that celebrated patriotic citizens who work autonomously on both individual moralities and political structures. Examining activist biographical accounts that tied entrepreneurialism to imaginations of change and revolution in Lebanon, this ethnography reveals both the possibilities and limitations of the middle‐class politics of entrepreneurial activism. Translocal encounters between the middle class, the aspirational middle class, and the returning diaspora entangled globalized projects of active citizenship and social entrepreneurship with lived experiences of war and leftist legacies in Lebanon. Fostering social mobilization and new ways of doing politics, entrepreneurial activism is a compelling case in which moral and political imaginations co‐constitute each other, and in which entrepreneurialism cannot be reduced to neoliberalism.

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.

This article focuses on Syrian‐led Muslim humanitarianism, and asks what types of discourses and practices emerged in the context of the Syrian Muslim diaspora's increased involvement in global refugee management as humanitarian actors. Through a case study of a major Syrian‐led humanitarian organization in Turkey founded by wealthy Syrian diasporan businessmen, the article examines how class differences, market discourses, and nationalist visions shape the contemporary politics of Muslim humanitarianism. I argue that Syrian Muslim humanitarian politics has featured complex struggles for legitimacy and recognition, which have led to new constellations of religious, neoliberal, and nationalist imaginations. Syrian Muslim humanitarians have claimed their legitimacy through negotiation of the Turkish state's neo‐Ottoman policies that render them invisible, and of Western organizations' and donors' Islamophobic biases that suspect them of supporting terrorism. Through strategies such as culturalizing Islam and enacting market discourses of professionalism and flexibility, Syrian Muslim humanitarians have claimed to embody global standards of humanitarianism, and have carved out a space in which their Syrian and Muslim identities are recognized. This article is among the first studies that highlight Syrian actors' growing influence in shaping the global field of humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees. Looking at the intersections of religion, class, and ethnicity, the article also expands our understanding of Muslim humanitarianism by emphasizing the often‐ignored themes of social class and nationalist imaginations.