Supervisor: Professor Graham Dawson 

Institutional email:  h.abiraad@brighton.ac.uk

Studying four Lebanese activists’ groups in Beirut and exploring the ways in which they deal with narratives of memory in the aftermath of the civil war (1975-1990), this research will shed light on the forms taken by social activism in dealing with the past and addressing unresolved legacies of the war.  The protracted war left a divided and traumatised society, while the Lebanese state has not provided official narratives and commemoration of the events. Nonetheless, members of the civil society, activists, academics and artists have addressed these issues in their work.  With a focus on three dimensions of memory (personal, collective, and as an outcome of groups’ actions), objects, artefacts and pictures, this project seeks to understand the roles of memory narratives in shaping activists’ involvement in social actions and to explore how social activism in Lebanon is engaged in dealing with issues from the past.  I will work with two kinds of activists’ groups whose agendas are solidly and variously related to memory: two groups focusing on the use of public space and two groups dealing with the issue of the disappeared and missing. Space is strongly linked to memory in Lebanon as the civil war led to spatial divisions based on religious sects and the reduction in public spaces open to all people. The disappeared and missing have only received little political attention and the civil society has led the fight in order to bring support to families and awareness to their cause at the national level.  The proposed research will offer new perspectives on the notions of space, memory and social activism in post-war contexts. It will make a contribution to the literature on memory in Lebanon, as well as contribute to the emerging area of enquiry concerning the relation between memory and social activism.