Remnants of Urbicide and Shared Heritage: Uncovering Beirut’s Liminal Political Holes

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article explores the ways deliberate and large-scale destruction within the urban environment of Beirut initiates a state of liminality resulting in “political holes”– empty areas dispersed throughout the cityscape. The existence of these political holes creates a shared heritage of liminality in the post-conflict territory of Beirut. Drawing from Coward’s (2008) framing of urbicide, Casati and Varzi’s (1994) definition of the hole, and van Gennep’s (1960) and Turner’s (1969) notions of liminality, the article introduces the term “political hole” as a physical liminal spatial entity – an absence – in the urban fabric achieved through an intentional political decision to demolish shared space. Based on a study of a series of demolitions in Beirut, Lebanon, between 1983 and 1994, the article demonstrates how urbicide led to the obliteration of heritage and the appearance of political holes in the city. Using aerial view observation and walking practices, the liminal ephemeral political holes are exposed as physical traces that sit in limbo, awaiting their replacement with a new building. Through analysis, these spaces are then uncovered as a representation of a history of urbicide, embodying the shared permanent liminality that was inflicted on Beirut’s urban landscape.