The Insecure City
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THE INSECURE CITY THE INSECURE CITY Space, Power, and Mobility in Beirut Kristin V. Monroe Rutgers University Press New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Monroe, Kristin V., 1974– author. Th e insecure city : space, power, and mobility in Beirut / Kristin V. Monroe. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–8135–7463–9 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–8135–7462–2 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–8135–7464–6 (e-book (epub)) — ISBN 978–0–8135–7465–3 (e-book (web pdf)) 1. Sociology, Urban —Lebanon—Beirut. 2. Public spaces—Lebanon— Beirut. 3. City traffi c—Lebanon—Beirut. 4. Violence—Lebanon—Beirut. 5. Urban anthropology—Lebanon—Beirut. 6. Beirut (Lebanon)—Social conditions. I. Title. HT147.L4M66 2016 307.76095692′5—dc23 2015021869 A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. Copyright © 2016 by Kristin V. Monroe All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without writt en permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. Th e only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defi ned by U.S. copyright law. Visit our website: htt p://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu Manufactured in the United States of America For my mother, Ann CONTENTS List of Figures ix Acknowledgments xi Note on Language xv Introduction 1 1 Th e Privatized City 18 2 Th e Space of War 35 3 Politics and Public Space 56 4 Securing Beirut 79 5 Th e Chaos of Driving 101 6 “Th ere Is No State” 121 Conclusion 139 Notes 145 References 165 Index 177 vii FIGURES Figure I.1 Internal Security Forces billboard 15 Figure 1.1 Map of Beirut in Lebanon and the region 19 Figure 1.2 Neighborhood map of Beirut 20 Figure 1.3 Cafe at a Beirut public garden during the late Ott oman period, ca. 1900–1920 23 Figure 1.4 Th e Corniche 32 Figure 2.1 Tent City 52 Figure 3.1 Lebanese “Parties and Colors” albums and stickers 61 Figure 3.2 Traffi c sign: “No foreign intervention! 1559 prohibited from passing” 77 Figure 4.1 Shark-fi n barriers 84 ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Before reaching this point, I had heard it said countless times that writing a book is a journey, and indeed it has been. I could not have done it alone. I am deeply indebted to the residents of Beirut who shared their time, energy, and stories with me. While some of those I knew and spoke with are mentioned by name in this book, most are not. To all of you, I express my gratitude for your friendship, assistance, and insights. Th roughout the process of developing this book, numerous colleagues at the University of Kentucky provided feedback and support. Th ese include: Karen Rignall, Srimati Basu, Patricia Ehrkamp, Janice Fernheimer, and Carmen Martinez Novo. Sarah Lyon and Mark Whitaker have off ered valuable guidance throughout the various stages of developing the book, and I am very grateful for their time, energy, and interest in my work. Many others, including Shannon Bell, Jacqueline Couti, Nazera Wright, Cristina Alcalde, Scott Hutson, Shannon Plank, Hang Nguyen, Paul Chamberlin, Jim Ridolfo, Erin Koch, Lisa Cliggett , and Diane King, off ered their sup- port in other ways, most especially by providing me with a community of scholars and friends with whom I could exchange ideas and, importantly, laugh. I thank all my colleagues in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Kentucky for their unwavering collegiality and good cheer. I am grateful to the American University of Beirut’s Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies for providing me with an institutional home dur- ing my fi rst research period. Kirsten Scheid and Joy Farmer were exceed- ingly helpful and wise colleagues and friends during my fi eldwork. Mona Harb and Mona Fawaz were always encouraging. I thank Jehan Mullin and Mariko Shimomura for their friendship during those tumultuous years in Beirut. At Northwestern University, I benefi edtt greatly from the mentor- ship of Micaela di Leonardo and Jessica Winegar and the support of the anthropology department as a whole. Nicole Fabricant has been a close and enthusiastic reader of draft s and has helped me develop my thinking. In diff erent ways and at various points, Farha Ghannam, Setha Low, Aseel Sawalha, Beth Notar, Julie Peteet, and Lara Deeb have off ered encourage- ment that has sustained me through this project. xi xii Acknowledgments Several individuals were instrumental in forging my path as a scholar including Bill Hoynes at Vassar College, and, later, Nina Berman and Denise Spellberg at the University of Texas at Austin helped to shape my theoretical outlook and historical perspective. At Stanford, I benefi edtt from the support and guidance of Sylvia Yanagisako and James Ferguson. Th eir inquiry about our social world, theoretical interrogation, and ana- lytical rigor are qualities I att empt to model in my own pursuits. I learned invaluable lessons in ethnographic writing and analysis from Renato Rosaldo. I thank Shelly Coughlan and Ellen Christensen for their assis- tance, and I am also grateful for the colleagueship of Tania Ahmad, Oded Korczyn, Zhanara Nauruzbayeva, Yoon-Jung Lee, Mun Young Cho, Jocelyn Chua, Sima Shakhsari, Aisha Beliso-De Jesus, and Kutraluk Bolton. Tiff any Romain’s incisive comments and suggestions made me a bett er writer and her calm spirit gave me ballast. Mukta Sharangpani was always a beacon and gave me a sense of both home and sisterhood during those years. Th e research from which this book emerges would not have been possi- ble without the generous fi nancial support of several institutions and agen- cies. Th ese include Stanford University’s Department of Anthropology and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad grant (2004–2005), a Geballe Dis- sertation Fellowship from the Stanford Humanities Center, and a summer research grant (2010) from Northwestern University’s Dispute Resolution Research Center at the Kellogg School of Management. Th e University of Kentucky College of Arts and Science’s start-up funding for new faculty enabled me to conduct follow-up research in summer 2013; the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation’s Career Enhancement Fellow- ship allowed me to focus full-time on writing during the 2013–2014 aca- demic year; and a College Research Activity Award from the University of Kentucky’s College of Arts and Science provided support for the book’s production. I would also like to thank my editor, Marlie Wasserman, for her support of this book project, and the staff at Rutgers University Press for their assistance throughout the publishing process. Finally, I wish to thank all my friends and family, without whom I could not have accomplished this goal. Annett e Muller’s enthusiasm for and faith in my work and thinking have been a source of inspiration over the last decade. During a late night conversation outside her San Francisco Acknowledgments xiii apartment long ago, Robin Li set me on this path, and it is one that I could not have imagined for myself. I am always grateful for her wisdom, warmth, and, imagination. Th is book is dedicated to my mother, Ann Monroe. In this venture, as in all others I have undertaken in life, she has off ered boundless support and love. Her belief in me has motivated my work and given me the confi dence to travel to new places and take on new challenges. I thank Louay Faissal for his patience, endurance, and assistance in making this idea of writing and fi nishing a book a reality. This book bears witness to a journey that runs parallel to this project, the one—from Beirut to Lexington, Kentucky, and all the stops along the way—that brought us together. Th e light and laughter of our daughter Maysan and the arrival of Noor have made the fi nal stages of this journey more beautiful, engaging, and fun. NOTE ON LANGUAGE People I met in Beirut spoke mainly in Lebanese dialect, English, and French and very oft en a mix of languages. I have used an extremely simpli- fi ed system for transliterating the Lebanese Arabic dialect, omitt ing all indi- cation of long versus short vowels as well as distinctions between hard and soft lett ers. I trust that specialist readers will be able to use the context to follow my transliteration. Names of places and people adhere to their offi - cial or common spellings. All translations of Arabic- and French-language textual materials are my own unless otherwise noted. xv THE INSECURE CITY INTRODUCTION An American in Beirut My fi rst knowledge of Beirut came from television news about Terry Anderson, a U.S. hostage captured during the Lebanese civil and regional war by Hizbullah militants in 1985 and held in captivity for six years.1 Anderson grew up in a town near where I spent my childhood and local news coverage during the years of his captivity regularly featured members of his family, most especially his sister and her eff orts to gain his release. Th us, my fi rst image of Beirut was one of war. Years later, when I was a graduate student, a professor, knowing of my interest in issues of class and urban space in the Middle East, suggested I visit Beirut. Aft er a preliminary visit in 2003, I was struck, as any visitor is, by Beirut’s vibrancy and diver- sity, the coexistence of so many diff erent ways of living: peddlers with carts overloaded with seasonal produce sharing the street with global corpo- rate retail outlets; a woman in conservative Islamic dress having coff ee with a friend wearing a revealing outfi t; sleek high-rise residential build- ings being constructed alongside timeworn two-story houses.