We buried the jungle under tons of asphalt and call it home: Re-imagining Beirut through the spatial practices of Lebanon's post-war generation

Abstract

Solidere, one of the main companies that was responsible for the reconstruction of Beirut s city center after the civil war (1975-1990), stated that they would provide a familiar and comforting physical environment, one which reinforces the citizens sense of belonging. However, scholars argue that the opposite can be observed: they erased the memories of the past like a tabula rasa and built on the status quo of a fragmented, segregated city where only the elite have the right to. In this process of post-war rehabilitation, it is argued, young citizens are being marginalized. Based on three months of ethnographic fieldwork, this thesis sets out to explore how young urban activists and artists construct and negotiate feelings of belonging through actively (re)shaping Beirut s existing infrastructure in a bottom-up way. The research demonstrates that Beirut s public spaces are contested domains of in- and exclusion wherein being political is often associated with sectarianism, corruption and the war lords that are leading the country. In three arguments I demonstrate that the young Beirutis create spaces of belonging: by bringing back the civil war s memories into public spaces (chapter 1), by strategically using symbols, colors and ornaments that are not associated with political parties (chapter 2) and by creating alternative public spaces on Beirut s public stairs an environment where local and global processes intersect (chapter 3). Whether it is because of mere beautification strategies or because of circulating a critical understanding of a public space, they succeed to initiate at least debate about the importance of an open urban space and the remembrance of the war to reflect on Lebanon s current situation.