War Museums in Post-War Lebanon: Memory, Violence and Performance

TY - JOUR

T1 - War Museums in Post-War Lebanon

T2 - Memory, Violence and Performance

AU - Larkin, Craig Alexander

AU - Parry-Davies, Ella

PY - 2019/4/10

Y1 - 2019/4/10

N2 - This article examines three museums that address Lebanon’s history of conflict: the newly opened Beit Beirut on the capital’s former Green Line, the Hizbullah-run Mleeta Resistance Tourist Landmark in South Lebanon, and Umam Documentation and Research’s online archive “Memory at Work”. Each testing the parameters of what the term “museum” can mean in Lebanon today, these cases highlight the still-contested nature of war narratives. Whilst many Lebanese youth express desire for a shared national history of the civil war, the affective complexities of recuperated memorial sites and the inconsistent involvement of the state suggest that the possibility of publicly staging such a history is far from secure.

AB - This article examines three museums that address Lebanon’s history of conflict: the newly opened Beit Beirut on the capital’s former Green Line, the Hizbullah-run Mleeta Resistance Tourist Landmark in South Lebanon, and Umam Documentation and Research’s online archive “Memory at Work”. Each testing the parameters of what the term “museum” can mean in Lebanon today, these cases highlight the still-contested nature of war narratives. Whilst many Lebanese youth express desire for a shared national history of the civil war, the affective complexities of recuperated memorial sites and the inconsistent involvement of the state suggest that the possibility of publicly staging such a history is far from secure.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85064220878&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/13537113.2019.1565182

DO - 10.1080/13537113.2019.1565182

M3 - Article

VL - 25

SP - 78

EP - 96

JO - Nationalism and Ethnic Politics

JF - Nationalism and Ethnic Politics

IS - 1

ER -