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Using Beirut’s second-hand ( bāle) marketplaces as a particularly opportune illustration, this paper attempts to document the geography and modes of socio-economic insertion of Syrian used-clothing traders. The analysis of Syrian settlement in Beirut extends to affects and emotional expression, in order to take into account the intimate experience of exile. This contribution aims to shed light on the way in which second-hand clothes trading shapes Beirut’s suburbs, exploring these urban experiences with regard to concepts of subsistence and resistance.