Library Catalog
Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

Reconstructing Beirut : Memory and Space in a Postwar Arab City / Aseel Sawalha.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: Jamal and Rania Daniel Series in Contemporary History, Politics, Culture, and Religion of the LevantPublisher: Austin : University of Texas Press, [2021]Copyright date: ©2010Description: 1 online resource (190 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780292792838
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 307.3/40956925
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- A Note on Language -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. Beirut: A City in Transition -- Chapter 2. Downtown in “the Ancient City of the Future” -- Chapter 3.ʿAyn el-Mreisse: T he Global Market and the Apartment Unit -- Chapter 4. “Beirut Is Ours, Not Theirs”: Neighborhood Sites and Struggles in ʿAyn el-Mreisse -- Chapter 5. Cafés, Funerals, and the Future of Coffee Sp aces -- Chapter 6. Placing the War-Displaced -- Afterword. Reclaiming Downtown Again -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
Summary: Once the cosmopolitan center of the Middle East, Beirut was devastated by the civil war that ran from 1975 to 1991, which dislocated many residents, disrupted normal municipal functions, and destroyed the vibrant downtown district. The aftermath of the war was an unstable situation Sawalha considers "a postwar state of emergency," even as the state strove to restore normalcy. This ethnography centers on various groups' responses to Beirut's large, privatized urban-renewal project that unfolded during this turbulent moment. At the core of the study is the theme of remembering space. The official process of rebuilding the city as a node in the global economy collided with local day-to-day concerns, and all arguments invariably inspired narratives of what happened before and during the war. Sawalha explains how Beirutis invoked their past experiences of specific sites to vie for the power to shape those sites in the future. Rather than focus on a single site, the ethnography crosses multiple urban sites and social groups, to survey varied groups with interests in particular spaces. The book contextualizes these spatial conflicts within the discourses of the city's historical accounts and the much-debated concept of heritage, voiced in academic writing, politics, and journalism. In the afterword, Sawalha links these conflicts to the social and political crises of early twenty-first-century Beirut.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780292792838

Frontmatter -- Contents -- A Note on Language -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. Beirut: A City in Transition -- Chapter 2. Downtown in “the Ancient City of the Future” -- Chapter 3.ʿAyn el-Mreisse: T he Global Market and the Apartment Unit -- Chapter 4. “Beirut Is Ours, Not Theirs”: Neighborhood Sites and Struggles in ʿAyn el-Mreisse -- Chapter 5. Cafés, Funerals, and the Future of Coffee Sp aces -- Chapter 6. Placing the War-Displaced -- Afterword. Reclaiming Downtown Again -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Once the cosmopolitan center of the Middle East, Beirut was devastated by the civil war that ran from 1975 to 1991, which dislocated many residents, disrupted normal municipal functions, and destroyed the vibrant downtown district. The aftermath of the war was an unstable situation Sawalha considers "a postwar state of emergency," even as the state strove to restore normalcy. This ethnography centers on various groups' responses to Beirut's large, privatized urban-renewal project that unfolded during this turbulent moment. At the core of the study is the theme of remembering space. The official process of rebuilding the city as a node in the global economy collided with local day-to-day concerns, and all arguments invariably inspired narratives of what happened before and during the war. Sawalha explains how Beirutis invoked their past experiences of specific sites to vie for the power to shape those sites in the future. Rather than focus on a single site, the ethnography crosses multiple urban sites and social groups, to survey varied groups with interests in particular spaces. The book contextualizes these spatial conflicts within the discourses of the city's historical accounts and the much-debated concept of heritage, voiced in academic writing, politics, and journalism. In the afterword, Sawalha links these conflicts to the social and political crises of early twenty-first-century Beirut.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Apr 2022)