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Introduction

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Book cover Precarious Imaginaries of Beirut

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Abstract

This chapter introduces the main argument of the book as a whole. It includes a relevance note and a specification and justification for the case selection and chosen method. Subsequently, a considerable part of this introduction provides a view of the complex contextual background to the issues discussed in the chapters to follow, coming from two different angles. The first is dedicated to identity constructions in Lebanon, which are entangled with imaginaries of Beirut. The two sections dedicated to this issue also show why urban identity can be highly contested. The second approach revolves around Beirut’s post-civil war reconstruction, divided into one section providing a historical overview and one devoted to the case of Beirut Central District. The redevelopment of the city centre has deeply transformed the physical appearance of the city throughout the years under study. It has unleashed heated debates in which the relations between space, memory, history and identity have been negotiated and contested. As a tangible manifestation of some of the main preoccupations of post-war intellectual life, the redevelopment of Beirut’s urban environment takes an important place in the works of cinema, art and literature of the period. The final section discusses the structure of the book.

While you remain here unblinking and in flux

Waiting with the impatience of a suckling

To bury us all

And march on our corpses

With concrete shoes

You infanticidal monster

Whose children will never follow the hearse

Despite it all I sometimes think I love you

Despite it all I love you I do I love you despite it all.

—Mazen Kerbaj (2012).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Leiden Institute for Area Studies, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Judith Naeff

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  1. Judith Naeff
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Correspondence to Judith Naeff .

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Naeff, J. (2018). Introduction. In: Precarious Imaginaries of Beirut. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65933-6_1

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