FOCUS 96 Stepping into the streets of Beirut exposes Henri Lefebvre’s ideas that “space is polit- A Confined Youth? ical and ideological” (Lefebvre 31). The Lived Space and Shifting urban fabric of the Lebanese capital still bears the marks of the violent conflicts Boundaries in Beirut that once ravaged the country (1975-1990) and displays countless evidences of its persistent social and political fractures. Flags, graffiti and posters fill the space with ideologies and symbolically prolong the physical divisions that characterized the city during the war (Haugbolle 161). Contemporary Beirut remains a polycen- tric city in which territories are subjected to powerful identity claims. Having inher- ited this space molded from past confron- tations, when the Green Line separated what was referred to as the West, mostly populated by Muslims, and the East, pre- dominantly Christian, young Beirutis born in postwar Lebanon have, in their daily Bruno Lefort1 activities, “to get along in a network of already established forces and represen- This article questions spatial experiences these boundaries not as ideological but tations” (De Certeau 18). In this article, I among students in Beirut. It mobilizes col- as the result of daily practices of segrega- intend to explore how the youth living in laborative map interviews to explore the tion born during the Lebanese wars Beirut manage this spatial-temporal heri- ways young people experiment with (1975-1990). This evolution reveals tage. More precisely, I aim at investigating space and the social boundaries it incor- renewed understandings of the Lebanese how the memory of the war as well as the porates. I argue that their perception of complex landscape and contributes to practices it inspires inform the ways young their lived space underlines a crucial shift: delineate youth as a social shifter. people experiment with space and the whereas their parents experimented the social boundaries it incorporates. How do city in terms of sectarian and political divi- Keywords: Youth; Politics of Space; today’s youth live and make sense of sions, my interlocutors have integrated Memory; Lebanon these inherited spatial divisions, and to Middle East – Topics & Arguments #09–2017 FOCUS 97 what extent are these experiences consti- and to critically engage with the notion of participants were asked to mark with a tutive of what could be identified as a youth and generation from the case of pen places or areas that bear special generation? contemporary Lebanon. meanings in their life on three successive While the questions of territoriality and maps at different scales: the first map rep- wartime memory have been the focus of Mapping Students’ Lived Space resenting their campus, the second the many academic works, which have espe- Before considering how the young people city of Beirut, and the third Lebanon. In cially insisted on the strength of socio- I met experiment with space, I deem it doing so, my intention was to play on spa- political territories (e.g. Deeb; Harb) and important to introduce my methods and tial scales to locate at once daily routines the difficulties of the country to deal with data collection techniques in more detail. as well as the imagination and memory its troubled past (Haugbolle; Makarem), The past decade has seen a developing embedded in these spatial frameworks. the position of the youth in regard to this attraction for collaborative research Using this technique, I collected thirteen double heritage has received insufficient (Rappaport 1), which “deliberately and interviews lasting between one and a half attention. The Lebanese youth have explicitly emphasizes collaboration […]” and two and a half hours, complemented remarkably remained for the most part (Lassiter 15). Following this growing inter- with ethnographic material gathered dur- ignored compared to other Arab coun- est, this article relies on collaborative inter- ing previous fieldwork among Lebanese tries, with the notable exception of studies views conducted among students of the students. Participants, recruited with the concerned with the prominent issue of American University of Beirut. (AUB) assistance of AUB professors, were aged migration (Kasparian). Yet, in a post-con- Fieldwork took place during the spring of between 21 and 27, with one exception of flict society such as Lebanon, the signifi- 2016 as part of a French-Lebanese an older, thirty-four-year-old student. They cance of youth is crucial to understanding research program on the role of universi- were in majority women (nine vs. four how the notion of generation matters in ties in the production of space in Beirut. men). These volunteers were studying at the reproduction of past boundaries and Within this project, I started from Henri the graduate and postgraduate levels, how the youth could locate themselves in Lefebvre’s notion of lived space (Lefebvre either in the department of Architecture territories marked by violent legacies. 33), which is born from the conception of and Urbanism or in the department of Positioning this article at the intersection space as both physically experienced (real Sociology. Four of them were beneficia- between the questions of memory, spati- space) and mentally constructed (imag- ries of full scholarships, covering the inte- ality and youth, I propose to shift the atten- ined space), invested with symbolism and grality of their tuition fees. The result is that tion to the experiences and imagination of meaning. After exchanges with my French despite the heavily elitist nature of the space among Beirut’s youth. Starting from and Lebanese colleagues, I designed col- AUB, not all the participants belong to an empirical case study grounded in laborative map-elicited interviews to upper-class families. These young people, young people’s imaginaries, it becomes investigate how students experiment with whose names and other identifying details possible to revisit the question of the spa- lived space, i.e. both the materiality of have been modified, agreed to share tial and temporal boundaries from below space and its imagination. Individually, aspects of their daily routine, memories Middle East – Topics & Arguments #09–2017 FOCUS 98 and experiences of space. The significa- tical, economic and social inequality Recounting Navigation Practices tion of the selection was then discussed (McFarlane and Anjaria 6). In our conversations, Beirut was depicted from the commentaries of the participants, as a demanding city, difficult to domesti- in collaboration with me. Adopting a I argue that ways young people reflect on cate. Chaotic, vertical or even overgrown micro-sociological approach, I used these their relation to space underline a shift in were the words put forward by most par- the experience of Beirut’s fragmented ticipants to describe the metropolis. In the interpersonal situations as a strategy reality: whereas their parents firstly con- maps they drew, three images predomi- through which broader social forces, ceived of the city in terms of its sectarian nate: first, the depiction of routes describ- properties, and processes can be un- and political divisions, my interlocutors ing their ability to move across the city; derstood as constituted in practice have integrated these boundaries not as second, the delimitation of specific areas, (Fine and Fields 131). ideological but as the result of daily prac- conveying the idea of territories, i.e. tices of avoidance of the Other born dur- spaces identified as familiar or, on the con- Accordingly, the stories presented in this ing the war and its immediate aftermaths. trary, alien; third, the descriptions of article were not highlighted because they In the next sections of this article, I lay out boundaries and fault-lines, which are not would be statistically representative. this central argument in the following only acknowledged but also frequently Rather, they were selected because of manner: First, I describe how their ways of confronted and transgressed. All three their capacity to illuminate dynamics I navigating the urban space underline a features materialize these young people’s observed during the fieldwork years and sense of territorial restriction, articulated sense of navigating Beirut’s urban terrain. in my dialogue with the participants. They around an insider/outsider trope. Then, I A master’s student in sociology, Maya, 34, uncover not only personal but also social describe how this confinement can be organizes her experiment with Beirut’s imaginaries and collective memories, traced back to daily practices of segrega- space according to three major areas, which, according to Maurice Halbwachs, tion born during as well as immediately each of which relates to a specific life always “unfold within a spatial framework” after the 1975-1990 wars. I make a case sphere: first, her family house and its (6). More specifically, I analyzed my mate- that, contrary to the war generations, these neighborhood of Badaro2, a residential rial using the concept of navigation as a limitations are practical in nature rather area marking the frontier between the theoretical underpinning. The notion of than ideological, which opens the way municipality of Beirut and its southern navigating lies “at the intersection of urban toward renewed narratives on coexistence suburb as well as between Christian dis- and youth studies” (Hecking 57) and high- and innovative strategies of bypassing tricts of Furn al-Chebbak or Ayn al-Rum- lights the ways confinement. Finally, I