A Landscape of War: Ecologies of Resistance and Survival in South Lebanon

286 Pages·2022·4.23 MB·English

by  Munira Khayyat

A Landscape of War
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A Landscape of War
ecologies of resistance and
survival in south lebanon
Munira Khayyat
university of california press
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University of California Press
Oakland, California
© 2022 by Munira Khayyat
All photographs are by Munira Khayyat. All illustrations are by Jala
Makhzoumi.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Khayyat, Munira, 1976– author.
Title: A landscape of war : ecologies of resistance and survival in South
  Lebanon / Munira Khayyat.
Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, 2022. |
  Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: lccn 2022013810 (print) | lccn 2022013811 (ebook) |
  isbn 9780520389984 (hardback) | isbn 9780520389991 (paperback) |
isbn 9780520390003 (ebook)
Subjects: lcsh: Lebanon War, 2006—Environmental aspects. |
  Lebanon—Social conditions. | Lebanon—History—Civil War, 1975-
1990—Environmental aspects.
Classification: lcc hn659.a8 k58 2022 (print) | lcc hn659.A8 (ebook) |
  ddc 306.095692—dc23/eng/20220629
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022013810
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022013811
Manufactured in the United States of America
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For Tata and Mama, light and love
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I mean, you must take living so seriously
that even at seventy, for example, you’ll plant olive trees—
and not for your children, either,
but because although you fear death you don’t believe it,
because living, I mean, weighs heavier.
—Nazim Hikmet, “On Living”
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Contents
List of Illustrations xi
Prelude: Warlight xiii
Acknowledgments xix
Note on Language and the Text xxv
Introduction: War, from the South 1
1. A Brief History of War in South Lebanon 32
2. Battle/field 69
3. The Bitter Crop 92
4. How to Live (and Die) in an Explosive Landscape 126
5. Maskun, or Nature’s Resistance 156
6. The Gray Zone 183
Conclusion: Life as War 209
Coda: A Marriage in Galilee 215
Notes 219
Bibliography 237
Index 255
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