The symposium began with an evening lecture from Saskia Sassen of Columbia University.
PROFESSOR SASKIA SASSEN 鈥 PUBLIC LECTURE:
A THIRD EmERGENT MIGRANT SUBJECT UNRECOGNISED IN LAW
Professor Henrietta L. Moore, Founder and Director of the Institute for Global Prosperity, opened day two of the symposium.
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Professor Philipp Misselwitz from the 听at TU Berlin presented an account of the infrastructural challenges in temporary refugee housing in his paper听Cities with refugees: reconfiguring planning approaches through the concept of arrival infrastructures.
鈥淗ere, planners were employed to address the ambivalent reality of protracted听refugee camps听and include 鈥渓essons鈥 from failures of earlier solutions where听refugee-initiated spatial appropriations that had led to congested spatial听conditions 鈥 perceived by听planners as dangerous and 鈥渙ut of control鈥. While I acknowledge the genuine attempt of planners to engage with the more听complex needs and听expectations of refugees, a careful look at the results of the听planning for better camps reveals ambivalent outcomes. As camps acquire a new听visual appearance,听closer to housing, which mixes shelter design with听well-designed public spaces, services and leisure facilities; these aesthetic 鈥渋nnovations鈥澨齝amouflage what听essentially remains a highly deterministic听infrastructure of disciplining and control. This, in effect, shrinks spaces of听self-determination and self-provisioning through spatial appropriations.鈥
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PANEL 1: VULNERABILITY AND THE (BUILT) ENVIRONMENT
The first panel, chaired by 白小姐论坛鈥檚 Camillo Boano,听opened with the IGP鈥檚 Hanna Baumann presenting her paper听Thinking through vulnerability: how conceptual approaches shape infrastructural responses.
Dr Baumann argued that vulnerability must be understood as both relational and interdependent. Through this lens, she critically interrogated how humanitarian actors operating in Lebanon 鈥 who necessarily see vulnerability as a condition to be overcome, but also as an operational concept to prioritise certain groups over others in aid delivery 鈥 have employed the term in the context of the response to the Syrian crisis.
Click for the video abstract to Hanna Baumann鈥檚 paper.听
Samar Kanafani from the American University of Beirut, also a postdoctoral researcher on the Public Services and Vulnerability project, then presented her paper,听Derelict spaces as migrant housing in Ras Beirut.
Watch Samar Kanafanis鈥檚 video abstract on her paper听.
鈥 Nadine Bekdache closed the first panel with her presentation,听Making the city and its suburbs through housing vulnerability: a close up on women and the elderly in Beirut鈥檚 Tareek el Jdeide.
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Watch Nadine Bekdache's video abstract听.听
Professor Laleh Khalili from SOAS responded to the first set of speakers, while drawing attention to the spatial and historical continuities of the condition of vulnerability within Lebanon 鈥 between refugees, migrant workers, and impoverished citizens. She concluded her remarks on the individual papers:
鈥淚 think what Samar and Nadine鈥檚 papers show in generous and textured ethnographic detail, and which Hanna exhorts us to understand is that the forms of vulnerability generated here is not individual; it is not even categorical (or 鈥渋nherent to certain groups鈥 as Hanna writes), whether these groups are elderly women without social security or Syrian migrant squatters. But rather that these vulnerabilities shine a light on the one hand on longer-standing forms of structural injustice and on the other hand on the aggressive neoliberal solutions offered to these inequalities and injustices, including the pernicious discourse of resilience which Hanna spoke about.鈥
Following a break, Joana Dabaj from presented听the collaborative research and participatory spatial intervention in Bar Elias, which formed a substantial part of the British Academy-funded project. Click to watch a film about the first phase of participatory spatial research in Bar Elias, carried out in October 2018 in collaboration between Catalytic Action and 白小姐论坛鈥檚 Development Planning Unit and Institute for Global Prosperity.
PANEL 2 鈥 METHODOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS
Mayssa Jallad from the American University of Beirut opened panel two, chaired by IGP鈥檚 Nikolay Mintchev, with her paper听Too close for comfort: witnessing vulnerability as a Citizen Scientist of Hamra, Beirut, reflecting on听her experience collecting data on the ground in Lebanon.听
As part of the Public Services and Vulnerability project, Mayssa carried out a building and infrastructure survey in the Beirut neighbourhood of Hamra, along with a team of Citizen Scientists (many of them locals) working with the .听She noted:
鈥淲hile this research process led to rigorous quantitative survey data collection, it simultaneously highlighting the intricate intimacies, power-plays, and realities of social life that are usually attributed to ethnography. In surveying the buildings and streets of Hamra, the team and I found ourselves grappling with the social disparities of the neighbourhood, its security concerns, and a spectrum of contradictory impressions regarding displaced Syrian residents.鈥
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鈥淲e had to find out if the building had a backyard. We suspected there might be one, since the house was bordered by narrow alleys on both sides. The small gate at the front yard was open, and so Adam and I took a swift walk around the building, finding a backyard. Given that the gate was open we assumed that this was open to the public, especially since in Beirut everything private tends to be gated and securely locked up. As soon as we returned to the front yard, a woman鈥檚 voice started scolding us from one of the interphone speakers. The voice was doubled from inside the front door at the ground floor apartment as well. An older man went down to meet us and the lady on the ground floor peeked at us from a window pane in the door. They were furious. The lady had seen us walk in the backyard through her curtains and could not believe our rudeness. I apologized profusely. Adam kept quiet, next to me. I introduced the study, and said we were researcher from AUB. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 believe you.鈥濃
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Watch the video abstract for Mayssa鈥檚 Jallad's paper .听
Andrea Rigon of 白小姐论坛's Development Planning Unit听then presented听his paper,听Recognising diversity in participatory urban infrastructure interventions.
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鈥淢any urban interventions in poor urban settlements in the global South assume all residents have similar aspirations and needs. However, these neighbourhoods are some of the most unequal settlements and interventions in these contexts create winner and losers. Different dimensions of diversity have to be taken into consideration in the planning of these interventions. Community participation approaches tend to portray an image of homogeneous community, leading to specific elite interests be portrayed as community interests.鈥
Taking the audience through a range of case studies from his practice, including participatory planning work in Lebanon, Dr Rigon argued that truly intersectional and relational diversity work must have the following elements: recognition, distribution, and representation.
Mira Tfaily of听EHESS Paris, who is also Head of Research听for in Lebanon,听presented her work on听The manufacture of illegitimacy: grassroots documentation of Lebanon's informal buses as a leverage to fight the instrumentalization of the unmappable.
Her work analysed听the discourses surrounding the invisibilisation and the romanticisation of Lebanon's bus network. It brought to light the active delegitimisation that permeates the perception of some informal practices, while other elite informalities are acknowledged and coopted by some planners and dwellers.
Based on a survey conducted via the messaging app WhatApp with over 1000 individuals, who shared their stories and insights on topics including their needs, fears, social relationships, as well as their views on humanitarian assistance and development. Dr Ullrich鈥檚 paper zoomed in on WhatsApp messages concerning public space and services, interrogating how ideas of belonging, vulnerability and otherness are expressed in Lebanese and Syrian discourses. The paper also situated the survey in the broader context of global knowledge production:
鈥淚n their messages, our respondents not only questioned the development framework in which the survey was embedded, but also the survey itself 鈥 its questions, its assumptions and purposes. They challenged a power-knowledge system that obscures their marginalization and exclusion through knowledge claims.鈥
You can watch Leila Ullrich鈥檚 video abstract .听 Learn more about the work in 听based on the survey.
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PANEL 3 鈥 NETWORKS AND CIRCULATIONS: WASTE, WATER, POWER
Dana Abi Ghanem (Teesside University)听opened the final panel with her paper,听Electricity, infrastructure and the vulnerability of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon:听the story of Shatila Camp鈥檚 鈥渆lectricity martyrs鈥.听Her presentation documented the tragic deaths of refugees who volunteer to fix the camp鈥檚 lethal electricity wires, which dangerously weave through the spatial fabric of Shatila.
Watch Dr Abi Ghanem's听video abstract to learn more about her work听.听
Fadi Mansour then presented his work,听Solid Waste Machine and Permeable Bodies:听Toxicity, Capital and Vulnerability in the Lebanese Waste Crisis. Investigating听the consequences of solid-waste mismanagement in Lebanon, his research work revealed听the vulnerability of bodies entangled within an environment of increasing toxicity.
to learn more about his work.
Lyne Jabri from KU Leuven/Lil Medina Initiative gave the symposium鈥檚 final presentation with her paper,听Water in Saida: crisis and infamous infrastructures.听Through the experience of an urban-activist initiative working in Saida (Lebanon) and through a closer look at the condition of water in the city, her听paper tries to understand the dynamic that links crisis with clientelism and destructive forms of urban development.
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鈥淚t reveals that the biggest changes to the city occurr during times of crisis, often as a result of in-coming capital and financial aid. Any crisis sees the emergence of major infrastructural projects and urban plans that create significant economic and social transformations in the city 鈥 while often compromising much of what made Saida sustainable and self-sufficient.鈥
Her reflections on contemporary political-infrastructural issues in Saida were based on her personal experience as part of the since its inception in 2013.
Watch her video abstract听.听
Professor Eric Verdeil from Sciences Po responded to the panel, commending the speakers for the depth with which they had examined the circulations 鈥 both human and non-human 鈥 facilitated by infrastructures.听
白小姐论坛鈥檚 Nick Tyler, concluded the events from an engineering point of view by pointing out not-always-obvious role of scale in infrastructural interventions. 鈥淪ince Bazalgette we鈥檝e thought that big problems require massive-scale infrastructural solutions. But sometimes it is the tiniest physical tweaks that make a significant difference in people鈥檚 everyday lives.鈥
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