Living Beirut's Security Zones: An Investigation of the Modalities and Practice of Urban Security

Abstract

Over the past decade, security has gained enormous attention in the urban literature, reflecting its visibly increasing presence in cities worldwide. It is now widely acknowledged that security is a structuring force for cities both historically and now. Few scholars have however looked at the implications of security on the daily practices of urban dwellers. Based on extensive fieldwork during which we developed a street by street survey of security mechanisms in Beirut (Lebanon), interviewed city dwellers, and worked with artists and local writers reflecting of “security issues”, this paper describes “security” as the accumulation of a set of constructed threats that bring together a multiplicity of forms and agents of securitization, both public and private, and generate new forms of social hierarchies with unequal repercussions on city dwellers. Far from the coherent symbol of an independent sovereign, we argue that security acts in Beirut as a reflection of and a catalyst for social and political divisions.

Experiences of Urban Militarism: Spatial Stigma, Ruins and Everyday Life

“…Indeed, militarized cities have their distinct histories and structures of marginality and a focus on marginality is essential for understanding how militarism is distributed throughout the urban space, fragmenting, ‘splintering’, or fortifying it, and how it impacts individual and group access to material and symbolic resources. As Mona Fawaz, Mona Harb, and Ahmad Gharbieh (: 191) put it, ‘like capital, security has become one more form in which social hierarchies are consolidated and/or challenged and new ones imposed’. A focus on urban marginality is also important for understanding how factors such as poverty and ethnicity interact in shaping experiences of militarized urban environments, including those of ethnically divided or contested cities.…”

From Camp Town to International City: Us Military Base Expansion and Local Development in Pyeongtaek, South Korea

“…For example, several scholars have noted that cities have become everyday sites of modern warfare in multiple senses. Vulnerability is produced and securitization is selectively enforced in the contexts of, for example, ecological disaster and the state-sponsored war on terror (Warren, 2002;Fawaz et al, 2012;Graham, 2012). In sites with active or looming conflicts, urban space simultaneously serves as tactical space, with infrastructures, property systems and development regimes closely intertwined with security regimes (Weizman, 2007;BouAkar, 2015).…”

Graphic Identity in the Scriptorial Landscape of Lebanon

“…An ethnographic look at both street art and outdoor advertisements involves an evaluation of the socio-political context from which this signage emerges. For instance, the popular use of political party stencils for marking out territory throughout the city is one approach that gained prominence during the civil war and continues to this day (Saleh 2009;Fawaz, Harb, and Gharbieh 2012). In this paper I look at how graffiti and signs draw on historical resonances to make meaning in these relatively unregulated spaces.…”