NPF Cycle One Fellows and Projects
Abir Saksouk-Sasso: Contesting National Authority in the Construction of Public Space: Spatializing Communal Sovereignty in Dalieh
Abstract: In contemporary Beirut, Lebanon, the “sovereign,” in the form of the state, has declared itself either disinterested or openly at war with “the public” in terms of the marking and utilization of shared spaces. Nevertheless, Beirut dwellers still lay claim today to a limited number of open areas in the city. Access and uses of these spaces is secured through social and communal agreements beyond the realm of legal or state regulation. This paper advocates learning from these publics by observing leftover spaces in the city in order to understand them as public, multicultural, just, and politically/socially open. It seeks to show how these spaces, which I will analyze as instantiations of popular or “vernacular communal sovereignty,” are produced and sustained in the city. This research is partially based on findings of fieldwork conducted as part of a collaborative project about the coast of Beirut entitled “This Sea Is Mine.” I focus on Dalieh, a sea-front area in Beirut where communal sovereignties have been generated that articulate alternative notions of public space as well as the legitimacy of state, nation, and people in the urban context.
Abir Saksouk-Sasso is an architect and urbanist. She has been involved in several research projects including the history of production of informal suburbs of Beirut (2005), and the participatory process of reconstruction in Nahr el-Bared refugee camp (2010). In 2006 after the Israeli war on Lebanon, she was directly involved in the reconstruction efforts in Aita el-Chaab. With Dictaphone Group, she recently produced a project about public space on the coast of Beirut entitled "This Sea Is Mine". She is currently developing multiple projects such as collaborative mapping in Ein el-Helwe camp, "Nothing to Declare" a lecture performance and research about abandoned railways in Lebanon, and the design of seven libraries in seven Palestinian camps.
