About

Graffiti art on a wall in Beirut reads: “Express yourself. Group therapy session. For the first time after the civil war.” (Graffiti by Salim Mouawad; Source: Akhbar Al Saha)

Graffiti art on a wall in Beirut reads: “Express yourself. Group therapy session. For the first time after the civil war.” (Graffiti by Salim Mouawad; Source: Akhbar Al Saha)

 
 

Why We Do This

Since the inception of the 17th October 2019 Revolution, the Lebanese youth has begun to confront the civil war’s legacy of repressed trauma, and forced amnesia. They have begun to challenge the hegemonic narrative put forward by ex-fighters and warlords-turned-ruling class by encouraging their parents and elders to recount their own stories of survival and struggle. However, without a central documentation platform, this oral history cannot be preserved well and be transmitted across generations. This project seeks to create a multimedia website to curate the stories and conversations surrounding the necessary memory of the war that can help push forward the understanding of Lebanon’s post-war politics and its repercussions and role in the multi-layered crises the country is experiencing.

Who We Are

The Lebanon Memory Archive is a central documentation platform that digs up and displays archives and projects that have contributed to preserving and transmitting the oral history of the civil war in Lebanon, as well as other histories of violence in the region. This multimedia website curates the stories and conversations surrounding the necessary memory of the war, which can help push forward the understanding of Lebanon’s post-war politics and its repercussions and role in the multi-layered crises the country is experiencing.

Meet the Team

  • Dr. Daniele Rugo

    Dr Daniele Rugo is an award winning filmmaker, Visiting Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics, Reader in Film at Brunel University London and currently a Visiting Professor at Sciences Po. His work focuses on conflict and sustainable peace. His latest feature documentary About a War explores violence and social change through the stories of former militiamen from Lebanon’s civil war. He is the author of three books and several journal articles. More info here

  • Dr. Carmen Hassoun Abou Jaoudé

    Dr Carmen Hassoun Abou Jaoudé is a political scientist, a researcher and expert in transitional justice. She is a lecturer at University Saint-Joseph in Beirut, the American University of Beirut and the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik where she teaches transitional justice and engages her students in truth-seeking and truth-telling exercises collecting testimonies from their parents on the Lebanese Civil War and ongoing political violence. She worked with the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) where she served as Head of its program and office in Lebanon between 2011 and 2015. She managed at ICTJ a multiyear project entitled “Lebanon: Addressing the Legacy of Conflict in a Divided Society” and over-viewed its reports and policy recommendations issued in 2014 by a consortium of Lebanese civil society actors, Confronting the Legacy of Political Violence in Lebanon : an Agenda for Change. She is an active Board member of the NGO Act for the Disappeared and has been appointed in June 2020 member of the National Commission on Missing and Forcibly Disappeared. Her fields of research include post-war Lebanon, human rights and transitional justice. Her latest publication: “Marginal memories of Lebanon’s civil war: challenging hegemonic narratives in a small town in North Metn”, co-authored with Daniele Rugo, in Journal of the British Academy, 9(s3), 11–27.

  • Yara El Murr

    Yara El Murr is a multimedia journalist who covers a broad array of topics in writing and in film with a focus on the intersections of science, health, psychology, and society. She is currently a staff journalist at The Public Source, a Beirut-based independent media outlet where she works on local investigations into the crises in Lebanon, profiles of economic and social alternatives, as well as health and environment PSAs. Her articles and videos have also appeared in The Guardian, Newlines Magazine, The New Arab, Scheherazade Speaks Science, the Brooklyn Reader, City Limits, and the NYC News Service. El Murr holds a BS in Biology with a minor in psychology from the Lebanese American University, as well as an MA in Journalism with focuses on science and health reporting and documentary filmmaking from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at The City University of New York, which she attended on a Fulbright scholarship. El Murr recently produced her first short documentary “Reverberations” that explores inter-generational trauma and war memories.