An Unusual Clique of City‐Makers: Social Networks in the Production of a Neighborhood in Beirut (1950–75)

Abstract

This article documents the early development of an informal settlement in Beirut (Lebanon) through the trajectories of the developers who participated in its production, looking specifically at the role that social networks played in the process. Drawing primarily on the methodological approach developed by Pierre Bourdieu, my analysis reveals that social networks play a central role as conduits for developers to access the necessary housing ingredients and market securities they need to conduct their businesses. Social networks also function as accumulated capital, enabling developers to strengthen their hold over the production of housing in the neighborhood. My analysis also indicates that while some of these networks were inherited, many were built through patient investments deployed by these developers within the changing limitations of the micro (neighborhood) and macro (city-wide) contexts. Finally, the changing distribution of social networks in this neighborhood determined when and how different social agents were able to participate as developers in the production and exchange of housing. These findings are important since they generate new insights into how (informal land) markets work, the practices of developers in this type of neighborhood, as well as the yet unstudied mechanisms of informal housing production in the Lebanese context. Copyright (c) 2008 The Author. Journal Compilation (c) 2008 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Contracts and Retaliation

“…This is because the ways in which land is perceived and legislated differ considerably from one context to another. More generally, research everywhere is indicating that access to housing ingredients (e.g., information, building materials, credit) depends on social institutions such as networks, which are anchored in thick social fabrics that are historically and geographically contingent (Pamuk 2000;Smith 2003;Fawaz 2008). More generally, research everywhere is indicating that access to housing ingredients (e.g., information, building materials, credit) depends on social institutions such as networks, which are anchored in thick social fabrics that are historically and geographically contingent (Pamuk 2000;Smith 2003;Fawaz 2008).…”

“…The market was then controlled by one developer, an oldtime resident of the area who established his practice on the basis of solid social ties with landowners (Fawaz 2008). The first is an early phase during which newcomers purchased illegally subdivided lots of 100 to 200 m 2 (U.S. measures) and built their houses incrementally, through self-help and self-managed processes.…”

“…I have developed this history in detail elsewhere (Fawaz 2008). In this region, which is located at the intersection between the territories of the then Christian village of Mrayjeh and the Druze village of Choueyfat, land was owned by Christian and Druze families who generally resided in the vicinities.…”

On the way to being middle class

“…For many, formal wages were never going to be enough in the long run; labor markets and worker rights could never be adequately stabilized, so residents had to find ways to insert themselves in each other's lives-through continuous appeals for cooperation, supplication, manipulation and deals of all kinds (Holston 1991;Askew 1994;Berner and Korpf 1995;Benjamin 2000;Hansen 2001;Bunnell 2002;Chatterjee 2004;Konings, van Dijk, and Foeken 2006;Lovell 2006;Whitson 2007;Fawaz 2008;Legg 2008;McFarlane 2009;Segre 2010).…”

Collective planning process: a driving seat for formalising urban informality in Egypt

“…The interdependent nature of actors (where actors are the individuals within a network) are a key distinguishing characteristic of a social network, and their structures and connectivity and the distribution of power are key components of marketing systems (Layton 2009;Jackson 2010). Fawaz (2008) stated that without systematically resorting to the terminology of social networks, the abundant literature that documented the formation of informal settlements during the 1970s and 1980s challenged their condemnation as 'spontaneous' by revealing that these neighbourhoods were organised and managed through thick webs of social relations (Collier 1976;Perlman 1976;Ward 1982;De Soto 1989).…”