Projects, Arrangements and Controversies on Beirut’s Demarcation Line
Type de matériel :
88
War demarcation lines have a structuralplace in urban representations, practices andstrategies of actors in post-war cities. In thisarticle, based on many years of in situ observation, we propose an analysis of urban projects envisioned or implemented on Beirut’sdemarcation line since the end of the war.We give particular attention to arrangementsand controversies between actors of differentprojects. This analytical approach throughaction allows us to question the monolithic conception of the demarcation line asa space “mirroring” communitarian polarization. The panorama of projects, arrangements and controversies invites us to bemore sensitive to temporalities and existingframes of governance to understand ongoingterritorialization dynamics at the metropolitan level. Localized arrangements aroundphysical and cognitive elements often seemto bear fruit. However, these arrangementsmay remain fragile and unstable in a contextof important dynamic changes like that ofurban reconstruction. Communitarianism isone of different levers sometimes mobilizedby some actors to insure arrangements orbreak them. Forgetting or denying it couldnot help transcend this demarcation line. Itmight be as some authors suggest the spaceof the “war yet to come”, however, webelieve it is first and foremost a laboratoryspace where we can observe the dynamicsof the “city yet to come”.
Réseaux sociaux