Terrains of Memory and Reconstruction: The Syrian Case

Many cities and villages across the Arab world have endured the devastation of war, as seen in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and Yemen. Despite the urgent need for recovery, local communities face profound dilemmas during the Terrains of Memory and Reconstruction: The Syrian Case reconstruction phase:

How can recovery take place while communities are still bleeding? Who finances reconstruction projects? How can local communities be meaningfully involved rather than sidelined? And how can reconstruction preserve what remains of a city’s memory and its tangible and intangible heritage?

In this discussion, we attempt to address some of these questions by focusing on the Syrian case, while emphasizing the need to think about these issues in ways that allow knowledge and experience to be shared across the Arab world.

Ammar Azzouz is a Lecturer and a British Academy Research Fellow at University of Oxford. His research focuses on destruction and reconstruction of cities, cultural heritage and art in exile. He is the author of Domicide: Architecture, War and the Destruction of Home in Syria, published by Bloomsbury in 2023. He has written for a wide range of platforms including the New York Times, Financial Times and the Guardian.

** This lecture is free for the public but requires registration and will be conducted in Arabic.