The shared public space of post-conflict: conceiving, perceiving and discovering the public space through Lattakia of Syria
Publication Date
July 24, 2020
Creator
Abstract
The early narrative of the ‘Arab Spring’ was associated with the global academia and media celebrating the event as a re-taking and re-using of long-forgotten public spaces. Nevertheless, a critical examination of the space of the event would indicate that the everyday roundabout and monumental political space are deprived of everyday social aspects. Today, the narrative of post-event marks the Arabic world and Syria particularly, through contested cities associated with competing identities. Within the same context, limited central public spaces operate without a civic virtue; on the other hand, numerous religious spaces are present; however, with a limited and exclusive public realm. Still, this research claims the potential civic role of public space as a valid concept capable of reforming and sustaining inclusive social patterns within the context of post-conflict associated with religious social patterns and the condition of the contested city. Between the years 2011 and 2018, through the context of Syria and Lattakia, this research attempts to explore the characteristics signifying the absence of civic public space, in order to establish a portrait for its possible existence through the narrative of post-conflict and the potentials of urban peacemaking.
In association with Part I: from theory to concept, the thesis examines three intellectual spheres concerned with: the notion of public life and space; the context of the Arabic City; and finally the condition of conflict in the city. Amid the realm of the possible, Part I explores theories and then hypothesises a conceptual proposition by first indicating that the public space’s multiplicity of products and processes represents the opportunity rather than the absolute notion capable of creating and shaping the diversity of public life through everyday civic encounters. Second, by presenting the context of exploration through the Arabic City, the concept of the hybridised city is introduced and then signified by the importance of mosques and the insignificance of the imported Westernised square concerning the everyday urban life. Third, it explores the role of conflict in shaping the urban environment, as well as being shaped by it, and concludes with the transformative condition of the public space from a frontier of the problematic exchange, the boundary of segregation, to then the border of civic exchange through efforts of urban peacebuilding. Finally, Part I of the thesis establishes an analytical framework constructed upon synthesising the findings and conclusions across the explored intellectual spheres.
The thesis’s scope transforms from the realm of possible into actual through Part II: from concept to context. It engages with a pragmatic approach as opposed to critical urban theory. The methodology articulates the justifications and limitations shaping the design of investigation to conclude with the adoption of a remote case study associated with the exploration of the public space’s presence and absences through first, the urban regulatory context of Syria; and second, the spatial conditions of Lattakia; all in association with the time of contestation and post-conflict potentials. The design of the case study’s subjects and purposes are hierarchically and sequentially associated with themes of conception, perception and discovery. Given the critical condition of the context to be explored, the method of data inquiry is limited and remotely correlated with archival study and urban policy investigation; semi-structured interviews of various stakeholders associated with the production of space; and finally, a secondary level of grey literature. The thesis pursues the presentation of the public space through central and local urban regulations. It then examines the representation of the public space through Lattakia organisational plan and its associated spatial condition. Between both established presence of active religious spaces and limited traces of public space’s definitions and identifications, presentation and representation, the thesis argues for the conceived and perceived absence of a strategic and comprehensive notion of civic public space. However, Part II also highlights the Village Market taking place through a marginal type of urban space; consequently, it declares the discovery of one tactical notion of the public space and the public realm beyond strategic presentations and representations of the public space.
Through Part III: from context to contest, the constructed analytical framework is adopted to unite the realms of possible and actual. The thesis engages in a phase of critical, thematic and cross cases analysis. It contests the context of exploration and initiates by accumulating the absent and discovered fragments of the shared public space of post-conflict. Then, the thesis assembles a potential comprehensive notion of public space by advocating the shared public space of post-conflict through the conceived, perceived and lived multiplicity of products, processes and responsibilities. In association with idealised aspirations and tuned anticipations, the research constructs the notion of the public space by combining the product and process of public space under a domain of urban planning oriented towards the narrative of urban peacemaking and the ultimate normalised everyday life. The thesis argues for the importance of research on the pragmatic and tactical dimensions of shared public space through the global north and south. It concludes by declaring the current and future significance of the civic public space through the context of the contemporary Arabic Mediterranean city associated with religious social patterns and time of post-conflict.
The research presented in this thesis marks the attempt to think and initiate the abstract shared public space of post-conflict through Syria and Lattakia. However, it also realises the significance of rethinking the complex process that could culminate with the physical shared public space of normalised life and make a recommendation on disseminating and implementing such a process.
Item Type
ethesis
Thesis Type
PhD
Supervisors
Subjects (LC)
Associated Schools / Departments
Department of Architecture and Built Environment (UK)
eprints ID
60322
UoN Repository URI
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