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Dr Sara Fregonese

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City and war, urbicide

My research explores the intersections between cities and war (particularly civil conflict) and the process of urbicide (the material destruction of the city). My PhD thesis (2004-8) explored these topics through the case of Beirut and the early phases of the Lebanese civil war (1975-6). I conducted fieldwork in Lebanon where I was a research associate of the Centre of Arab and Islamic Studies (CAMES) at the American University of Beirut.
During my British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship I extend my exploration from 1970s Beirut to contemporary Lebanon and especially Beirut’s changing political geographies in the Post-Hariri years. I look comparatively at the urban clashes of May 2008 between opposed armed militias, exploring the role of the built environment in shaping practices and representations of the conflict.   

Geopolitical knowledge, state and non state actors

During my PhD I explored how the popular geopolitics of Beirut’s urban militias spoke to and re-interpreted official geopolitical discourses, often through practices involving the physical urban environment. I also started exploring instances in which state actors and militias shared some of the practices of conflict (for example, swapping technical and tactical knowledge). As part of my post-doc, I continue to research how state- and non-state actors coexist rather than dwelling within unconnected discursive and physical realms in situations of conflict.

Violent geographies and the colonial past

Modern Lebanon is also a product of the French colonial mandate’s technologies of power. One of these has been the institutionalisation of legally recognised religious communities in which the population has been categorised. This culture of sectarianism (as Ussama Makdisi calls it) has used the sect for a process of subjectivation that shaped Lebanese citizenship, participation and identity. My research investigates the connections between modern colonial governmentality and the political violence experienced by contemporary Lebanon. Recently I am engaging with literature on cosmopolitanism and its relationship with territoriality, using it to unpack the modern tensions underpinning cultural imaginaries of sectarian coexistence and violence in Lebanon.

Research awards

2004 -2007       College PhD studentship (Newcastle University)