The Ambivalent Nature of Urban Borders: Martyrs’ Square in Beirut

<p>Beirut is a multi-layered, dynamic and extremely contested city, which boomed in the early twentieth century to become one of the region’s complex urban environments where both memorabilia of the war and the resistance to neoliberal regeneration defy the oblivion of the past and the future. A couple of decades after the bloody civil war which broke the city in two along a harsh line, the neighborhoods of Beirut still find themselves highly segregated, usually based on residents’ socioeconomic status, and quite often dominated by religious or political ‘enthusiasts’ place-politics, securitizing the streets and signifying their presence with localities, photos of politicians, and flags and banners across buildings and street vendors. This book is an examinations about Martyrs’ Square in Beirut and its role as in intra-urban border.</p>