My contribution to this project was focused on analyzing, mapping and visualizing the editors' three contributions to the publication Refugees as City-Makers – by the Social Justice and the City Program at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs, American University of Beirut (2018). This process was complemented by an article co-authored with Ahmad Gharbieh.

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See the maps in context:

here (Syrian-owned Businesses in the city)

here (Seeing the city as a delivery driver)

here (Inhabiting the city, remaking its quarters)

 

Read our article here.

 

Download the full publication here.

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Read personal reflections on the data analysis and unpublished insights from the design process here and here.

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About

More than five years into the “refugee crisis”, popular discourses and media debates in Lebanon still lack the vocabulary to describe the impressive competence of individuals and groups fleeing a war-torn country and the resilience they have demonstrated in facing difficult residency in nearby host countries. In this collection of essays, scholars, writers, designers and artists have set out to contest the stereotypical representation of Syrian refugees as destitute, powerless and passive aid recipients. Through original research, direct documentation, analytical representations, and visual investigations, they present a kaleidoscope of refugees as workers, entrepreneurs, dwellers, visitors, artists, artisans, students, drivers and –mostly– as active agents in the reconstruction of their livelihoods, as well as political subjects engaged in a reflection about the future of their country and the significance of their presence in today’s Lebanon.