War and the City: Urban Geopolitics in Lebanon

Description

War and the City examines the geopolitical significance of the Lebanese Civil War with specific focus on micro-level exploration of the way in which the urban landscape of Beirut was transformed by the conflict. Focusing on the initial phase of the war between 1975–76, known as the Two Years’ War, this study moves away from formal macro-level geopolitical analyses of the war and proposes an exploration of the urban nature of the conflict through bodies, spaces and urban materials. The book utilizes urban viewpoints in order to examine the nature of sovereignty in Lebanon and how it is inscribed on the landscape of the city. The emphasis on materiality also allows connections to be drawn between the urban impact of the civil war and the historical legacies of Lebanon’s colonial past. While most scholarship has thus far focused on post-war reconstruction of the city, the initial process of destruction has been neglected. This study investigates how geopolitical meaning is re-negotiated during conflict. Cover Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements On translation and transliteration List of militias mentioned in the book List of participants from the 1975–1976 war Introduction Scope of the book Anti-geopolitical eyes, subjugated knowledges Structure of the book Note on methodology 1 Cities in the Space of Global Politics Contested histories New urban wars? Urbicide: Theorizing political violence against the urban built fabric A genealogy The city of urbicide 2 Modernity, Territory and Conflict in Lebanon The sect as laboratory of modernity The refuge and the battleground The sect as territory. The Double Kaymakamate of Mount Lebanon (1842–1860) The sect as dispositif. The Mutasarrifiyya of Mount Lebanon (1860–1920) Normalizing the sect: The French mandate and the Lebanese Republic (1920–1946) Overlapping territories. The mountain and the shifting urban geopolitics of Beirut 3 Lebanon Salvaged: Sovereignty and Urban Space in the Republic of Lebanon (1943–1975) Geopolitical scripts of fragility The urban geopolitics of Operation Blue Bat 4 Towards War The missing link: Revisiting socio-economic perspectives on violence in Lebanon Hybridizing sovereignty: The relationship between state and irregular armed groups Urban architectures of enmity The Sidon fishing protests The bus shooting and the start of the war The Two Years’ War 5 Lebanon Lost: The Urban Impact of Non-Intervention The tragedy script: Non-intervention as territorial trap The chaos script: The politics of loss The fate script: The unavoidable sect 6 De-Subjugating Beirut’s Urban Geopolitical Knowledges The built environment and the propagation of violence Reframing sovereignty in the city Geopolitical architectures: The battle of the hotels 7 Beirut’s Hybrid Sovereignties: The May 2008 Clashes From lack of sovereignty to hybrid sovereignties Beyond the state/nonstate dialectic Sovereignty and the built environment in the May 2008 clashes Conclusion De-subjugating geopolitics Decolonizing sectarianism Contextualizing urbicide Towards pacific urban geopolitics Beirut’s possible spaces for peace Notes References Afterword Index