South Lebanon Talks
About
First Talk
The first talk will be delivered by Prof. Rami Zurayk, titled:
“Beyond Resilience: Land, Agriculture, and Stalled Reconstruction in South Lebanon.”
📅 Wednesday, January 21
🕐 1:00 pm
📍 Architecture Lecture Hall, Dar Al-Handasah Architecture Building, Room 106
Abstract
Post-war recovery in South Lebanon has followed a recurrent trajectory since the 20th century: rapid attention to visible destruction, followed by prolonged neglect of land, agriculture, and environmental remediation. Drawing on long-term research on war-affected lands, agrarian systems, and environmental damage, as well as comparative insights from the post 2006 war, I examine how state led recovery repeatedly fails to treat land-based livelihoods as a condition for durable return.
The analysis is grounded in sustained field presence and continuous communication with communities in the South—particularly farmers—allowing recovery to be examined as a longitudinal process rather than a post hoc assessment. I differentiate three zones shaping recovery trajectories: the immediate border zone, where access and reconstruction are most restricted; the area south of the Litani, where return is constrained by regulatory uncertainty; and the region north of the Litani, where rebuilding proceeds unevenly while cumulative land degradation remains largely unaddressed.
A comparison between 2006 and the present highlights both continuity and escalation. In 2006, explosive remnants—especially cluster munitions—rendered vast areas of agricultural land unusable long after the ceasefire, with contamination still documented as a development constraint. In the current context, reconstruction is not only stalled but return and access to agricultural areas remain restricted in parts of the South, producing displacement through administrative and spatial means as well as physical destruction and mined borderlands. I critically reframe “resilience” through South Lebanon’s history of resistance, arguing that resilience is increasingly mobilized as a governance discourse that normalizes repeated harm and deferred repair.
Second Talk
The second talk will be delivered by Batoul Faour, an architect and visual artist, titled
“Seasons of Return.”
📅 Wednesday, February 4
🕐 1:00 pm
📍 Architecture Lecture Hall, Dar Al-Handasah Architecture Building, Room 106
Abstract
Seasons of Return reflects on repeated journeys back to the Southern town of Khiam in the aftermath of the recent and ongoing systemic Israeli aggression. Return here is seen not just merely as a moment of arrival, but an ongoing negotiation with and against destruction, occupation, and uncertainty. Situating recent Israeli incursions within a longer history of imperial intervention, the village is read as a site where successive empires have inscribed power onto land, infrastructure, and everyday life. These layered histories remain embedded in the ground itself, resurfacing through new cycles of violence. Through and despite these conditions, seasonal rhythms of the land and communal acts of repair continue to shape Khiam’s social fabric, revealing how life is reassembled in landscapes marked by recurrent disruption.