Dima Smaira

Dr Dima Smaira

Small Group Project 2024-25

Political authority in the ruins – developing an urban lens on wartime and post-war governance of the Middle East

This project proposes that the city, rather than the state, should be the starting point for understanding struggles over governance. An urban lens can provide new theoretical insights and methodological tools to help scholars make sense of these transformations through its attention to the multiplicity of authorities and scales, including local non-state informal as well as national and transnational actors, and to the co-production of space and political order. This project will build on the long tradition of ‘seeing like a city’ (Magnusson 2011) and the emerging broader literature on conflict and post-conflict cities.

More information

Areas of interest

Geography International Relations Peace and Conflict Studies Ethnography Mapping Storytelling Youth Citizenship Lebanon

Cohort

FG10

Biography

Dima Smaira is a lecturer on a part-time basis at the Political Studies and Public Administration Department at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and an independent researcher. She was a post-Doctoral Research Associate at Durham University’s Geography Department and a Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College London.

Dima is interested in the spatial and everyday turns in International Relations and Peace & Conflict Studies. She uses both traditional qualitative and participatory ethnographic methods, including digital storytelling and mapping. Her research is looking into youth and citizenship in deeply divided societies and on everyday peace and security in Lebanon, particularly across Beirut’s Southern Suburbs (known as Dahiyeh). Dima is also a member of Khaddit Beirut (Beirut Shake-up), an initiative for reform and recovery launched following the Beirut 2020 port explosion (https://khadditbeirut.com/).

Biographical details correct as of 09.07.25