scholarly journals Latency in Lebanon, or bringing things (back) to life: A Perfect Day (Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, 2005)

2021 ◽  
pp. 175069802110333
Author(s):  
Max Silverman

Many Lebanese films and documentaries of the last few decades have focused on the hidden legacies of the civil war (1975–1991) that remain unprocessed in public, and often private, life. Unsurprisingly, these works have often been discussed by critics through the lens of traumatic cultural memory. In the first part of this article I argue that this model is productive yet insufficient. I suggest, instead, a methodological approach which acknowledges the intersections between trauma and other processes underpinning everyday life in the city. In the second part of the article I apply this approach to the film A Perfect Day (Hadjithomas and Joreige, 2005). Using the directors’ own concept of latency, I analyse the affective modes of touch, breath and the hidden life of objects to show how the performative existential drama that unfolds in the film opens out onto processes that go beyond the haunting legacies of violence from the civil war and includes a vision of singularity and infinite possibility that relates back to the birth of cinema itself.

Urban History ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Alejandro Pérez-Olivares

Abstract For some years, the historiography on Francoist violence has engaged with debates developed by European scholars on the importance of citizen collaboration in authoritarian regimes. In some cases, denunciations made by ‘ordinary men’ have been quantified to establish the extent of violence in everyday life, without taking other qualitative criteria into account. This article explores the importance of urban criteria such as neighbourhood, sociability and mobility in the scope of Francoist violence, taking the military occupation of Madrid at the end of the Spanish Civil War as a case-study.


2020 ◽  
pp. 87-108
Author(s):  
Ulises Bernardino Márquez Pulido

This article examines the “everyday practices” of the immigrant population of Barcelona in relation to the Covid-19 context during the first few months after the Spanish government declared a State of Emergency (Real Decreto 463/2020, March 14). The first section sets out the theoretical and methodological approach followed along with statistical information about the study population. It then goes on to investigate the “cultural practices” of the Red de Cuidados Antirracista, a network set up to help and support vulnerable migrants who live in Barcelona, also offering a brief discussion of other cases. Finally, it emphasizes the special relevance of everyday life in the social organization processes activated by migrants to cope with the pandemic, in particular how everyday life is expressed within specific practices in the city and the urban space, configuring a particular politicization of habitation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alicia Lindón

Abstract. The general subject of this text is the contemporary city, understood as a lived territory: it develops a theoretical–methodological approach to the sociospatial construction of urban territory that integrates both the material and the nonmaterial. The sociospatial construction of the lived city is approached via an articulated set of analytical levels. Accordingly, the first part presents the level of the spatial practices and the urban imaginaries that accompany them. The second part integrates the incorporated affectivity that acts and territorializes itself in the everyday life of the city. The third part considers urban scenarios as situational articulations of the subjects of the two previous parts. Individual topological networks are then incorporated as sequences of urban scenarios that integrate the subjects' biography, leading on to the crisscrossing of different topological networks in an approximation of the lived city in all its fragmented, dense, and fluid complexity.


2021 ◽  
pp. 87-108
Author(s):  
Ulises Bernardino Márquez Pulido

This article examines the “everyday practices” of the immigrant population of Barcelona in relation to the Covid-19 context during the first few months after the Spanish government declared a State of Emergency (Real Decreto 463/2020, March 14). The first section sets out the theoretical and methodological approach followed along with statistical information about the study population. It then goes on to investigate the “cultural practices” of the Red de Cuidados Antirracista, a network set up to help and support vulnerable migrants who live in Barcelona, also offering a brief discussion of other cases. Finally, it emphasizes the special relevance of everyday life in the social organization processes activated by migrants to cope with the pandemic, in particular how everyday life is expressed within specific practices in the city and the urban space, configuring a particular politicization of habitation.


2019 ◽  
pp. 423-459
Author(s):  
Maha El-Masri

The excavation of site Bey 004 in the urban center of Beirut was done as part of a major salvage-archaeology operation in the 1990s, in reparation for the redevelopment of the city after the Lebanese Civil War. War destruction had given archaeologists the opportunity to investigate the topography, history and everyday life of Beirut over the millennia since its establishment and before a new city would be built on top of the ruins in the 21st century. Terracotta oil lamps, like tableware, are a sensitive guide to the passage of time and cultures, spanning the ages the 5th century BC through the 9th century AD, from Persia to Islam. The article reviews the assemblage from the Bey 004 site, broken down by a local site typology that reflects major periods of occupation, and relates it to existing typologies of ancient Near Eastern lamps from the Canaanite to the Islamic.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 95-99
Author(s):  
Ana Rusta

AbstractIn this essay will be given a great importance to the traditional and contemporary conception and perception of urban space as elements referred to the city. Throughout the analysis, in the level of the contemporary perception of the city, will be presented the theory that insists on the conception and construction of urban space by the practices of everyday life and the so-called strategy of resistance. This refers not only to a new frame of sociology but also to a new methodological approach for the construction of the urban space. Regarding the latter, will be elaborated the thought of Henri Lefebvre and Michael De Certeau as a vector for the explanation of some problems observed in the methodological conception of urban space such as the city of Tirana. Through this approach, we will specifically disclose some problems observed about the use of certain urban spaces. Traditionally, the theory of representation emphasizes a conception of abstract and rational presentation of urban space analyzed from above, giving us an incredibly simplified bureaucratic view of the city. This theory does not analyze specifically micro-urban space and social problems facing the people in this space. Therefore, a new contemporary theory appears as a critique which aims to use a new anti-bureaucratic method that starts from the study of practices of everyday life, using instrumental analysis of the body and micro-social practices to present urban space in the most comprehensive frame.


2016 ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Mariana Giaretto ◽  
Victoria Naffa

ResumenEn este trabajo analizamos las relaciones entre tomas de tierras y Estado, en elAlto Valle de Río Negro en Argentina. En un contexto general de especulacióninmobiliaria, por la que se encarecen los precios de alquileres y terrenos, y depolíticas de vivienda selectivas y acotadas, los sectores populares acceden aun espacio en la ciudad mediante tomas de tierras. Frente a estos conflictos,el Estado, en sus diferentes niveles y poderes, despliega una forma deintervención basada en la criminalización de las luchas por tierra y vivienda.Al mismo tiempo, el poder ejecutivo nacional crea la Secretaría de Acceso alHábitat, para posibilitar la intervención política orientada a la regularizaciónde los asentamientos. Sin embargo, esta intervención tiende a reinscribir laproblemática habitacional en el campo político, para reducirla a un conflicto“entre partes”, eludiendo la responsabilidad estatal.Desde un enfoque metodológico cualitativo, seleccionamos como referenteempírico el caso del asentamiento de Villa Obrera en Fiske, Menuco (Gral.Roca), y las técnicas de recolección de datos se basan en fuentes secundarias,como expedientes judiciales y normativa, y en fuentes primarias como son losrelatos de los protagonistas mediante entrevistas individuales y colectivas.Palabras clave: tomas de tierras, Estado, criminalización de los conflictos.Conflicts caused by land occupation and modesof State intervention: analysis of an experience ofAlto Valle in Río Negro (Argentina)AbstractThis paper analyzes the relationship between State and land occupation,at Alto Valle in Río Negro, Argentina. In a general context of real estatespeculation, where rents and land prices are expensive, and a policy ofselective and limited housing, popular sectors can have access to a spacein the city through land occupation. In front of these conflicts, the Statein its different levels and powers, displays a form of intervention basedon the criminalization of struggles for land and housing. At the sametime, the national executive creates the Secretariat of Access to Habitat,oriented to allow political intervention for the regularization of settlements.However, this intervention tends to re-register the housing problems in thepolitical arena, reducing it to a conflict “between parties” and eluding theresponsibility of the State.From a qualitative methodological approach, we selected as empirical referencethe case of the settlement of Villa Obrera in Fiske, Menuco (GeneralRoca). The techniques of data collection are based on secondary sources, suchas policy and legal records, and primary sources as the stories of protagoniststhrough individual and collective interviews.Keywords: land occupation, State, criminalization of conflicts.Conflitos sobre ocupações de terras e modos deintervenção do estado: análise de uma experiênciado Alto Valle do Rio Preto (Argentina)ResumoEste trabalho analisa as relações entre a posse de terra e o Estado, no AltoValle do Rio Preto, na Argentina. Num contexto geral da especulaçãoimobiliária, por qual se encarecem os preços do aluguel e das terras, e depolíticas de habitação seletivas e limitadas, os setores populares acedem aum espaço na cidade através de ocupações de terras. Frente a estes conflitos,o Estado, em seus diferentes níveis e poderes, desenvolve uma forma deintervenção com base na criminalização das lutas pela terra e vivenda. Aomesmo tempo, o poder executivo nacional cria a Secretaria de Acesso àHabitat para possibilitar à intervenção política orientada a regularização dosassentamentos. No entanto, esta intervenção tende a registrar os problemasde habitação no campo político, para reduzi-la a um conflito “entre aspartes”, iludindo a responsabilidade do Estado.A partir de uma abordagem metodológica qualitativa, foi selecionado comoreferência empírica o caso do Assentamento de Villa Obrera em Fiske,Menuco (Gral. Roca), e as técnicas de recolecção de dados são baseados emfontes secundárias, como expedientes judiciais e normativos, e em fontes primárias como são as histórias dos protagonistas através de entrevistasindividuais e coletivas.Palavras-chave: tomada de terras, Estado, criminalização dos conflitos.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4382
Author(s):  
Gonzalo Salazar ◽  
Paloma González

In the current global scenario, in which mobility has been strongly impacted, it is relevant to highlight certain mobility experiences of Indigenous Latin American peoples, in which new cultural and geographical elements justify revisiting this phenomenon. In this context, the mobility of the Aymara ethnic group offers an opportunity for such a second look. Although the subject has been approached from the perspectives of internal migration processes and physical movement, as in other Latin American cases, studies have omitted some important aspects for its analysis, such as the practices, meanings, and political implications associated with mobility. Based on the new mobility paradigm, this article seeks to strengthen the perspective on mobility by researching rural-urban mobility practices and their meaning regarding the experiences of Aymara people who migrated from the rural municipality of Putre to settle in the city of Arica from the 1950s. At the same time, it is shown that these Aymara mobility practices imply spatiotemporal dynamics that are key for the construction of place, and allow for a widening of base elements that should be considered in the new mobility paradigm. This research is based on five years of ethnography, including mobile accompaniment and semi-structured interviews. This methodological approach has allowed researchers to explore how elements related to physical and symbolic mobility have constantly constructed relational spaces within the Arica and Parinacota region over time. This shows that mobility does not only refer to physical movement, but to politics, emotions, culture, and memory as well. From these results, the article examines and discusses key elements related to physical and symbolic mobility, and their implications in political and intercultural terms.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-126
Author(s):  
Megan M. Daly

AbstractThe recognition of the similarities between Roman epic poetry and historiography have led to valuable studies such as Joseph’s analysis of the relationship between Lucan’s Bellum Civile and Tacitus’ Histories. Traces of Lucan’s Bellum Civile can also be observed in Tacitus’ Annals 1 and 2, causing the beginning of Tiberius’ reign to look like a civil war in the making. The charismatic Germanicus sits with a supportive army on the northern frontier, much like Caesar, causing fear for Tiberius at Rome. Germanicus denies his chance to become the next Caesar and march on the city, but he exhibits other similarities with Lucan’s Caesar, including an association with Alexander the Great. Although at some points Germanicus seems to be repeating the past and reliving episodes experienced by Caesar in Bellum Civile, he prevents himself from fully realizing a Caesarian fate and becoming Lucan’s bad tyrant. The similar images, events, and themes presented by both authors create messages that reflect experiences from the authors’ own lives during dangerous times.


2008 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 75-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
AbdouMaliq Simone

Abstract:In contemporary urban Africa, the turbulence of the city requires incessant innovation that is capable of generating new ways of being. Rather than treating popular culture as some distinctive sector, this article attempts to investigate the popular as methods of bringing together activities and actors that on the surface would not seem compatible, and as experimental forms of generating value in the everyday life of urban residents. This investigation, sited largely in Douala, Cameroon, looks at how youth from varying neighborhoods attempt to get by, and at the unexpected forms of contestation that can ensue.


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