Images in South Lebanon: an Absent Presence. The Case of the Former Khiam Prison

Abstract

This article investigates the status and effect of images in the post-conflict public space of South Lebanon which is the stage of political and social configurations involving specific means of image production on the territory. How, why and for whom are images produced in a post-conflict area that has been perceived as “invisible” for thirty years? Are the images produced a way to go beyond this conflict or do they perpetuate it? All of these artefacts are resources for the appropriation of the southern Lebanese space; but discrepancies are created on the ground by their limited effects and reception. The aim of this paper is to point out the dissonances between the presumed power of these images and their effectiveness on the ground by focusing on the staging of the former prison of Khiam since 2000 and its reflection of all these dynamics. We will show that images in Khiam and in the South are in a liminal state: they are produced for Others who are not directly addressed, they are contested but not on-site and the effect of this contestation is null. They are finally ghosts in the place, ghosts in the territory.