Key Projects
The Families of Basta’s Antique Market and the Making of Bachoura as a Suburb (working title)
By: MASARAT PRESENTS
Role: Lead Researcher and tour performer
Main Output: Narrative explored through a Walking tour
The research explores Basta’s “Antiques Market”, unraveling its origins by tracing the trajectories of the early families engaged in this generational trade and the socio-political and economic conditions that accompanied their earliest arrival to the area.
Presented as a walking tour, the research tries to paint a picture of placemaking in Bashoura during Beirut’s first expansion from a fisherman town to a central port city on the Mediterranean with sprawling suburbs.
Forms of Displacement, Housing Trajectories, and the Making of a Suburb: Case Studies of the City’s Most Vulnerable
By: Public Works Studio
Role: Fieldwork, Researcher, Author, Spatial Visuals
Main Output: 2 Ethnographic narrative pieces
The qualitative research studies the cases of three elderly women who live or have lived in Tarik Jdideh, and documents their journeys navigating eviction, or living under its constant threat. Through their individual stories, we develop an understanding of home as a socio-spatial practice and the structural barriers to women’s housing security.
I take the role of the main investigator. The project resulted in writing three ethnographic narrative pieces (I authored two of them), and several sets of plans and infographics that I sketched to accompany and spatialize the textual narration.
Reconstruction of former Jewish Spaces in the Absence of the Jewish Community: Mapping Wadi Abu Jmil
By: Dr Molly T. Oringer
Role: Colaborator (as MASARAT PRESENTS), Tour presenter
Main Output: Walking Tour
This collaboration with Dr. Molly T. Oringer for her Ph.D dissertation with UCLA mapped the physical embodiment of the reconstruction policy behind one of SOLIDERE’s most drastic interventions in the city center in Wadi Abu Jmil. My contribution was developing and presenting a walking tour in the neighborhood that reflected on its history, memory, and its contentious reconstruction through the physical remnants, and an open discussion with the participants.
Rental Market Trends Amid Crisis: Prices, Conditions, and Threats Documented in 2021
By: Public Works Studio
Role: Lead Researcher- Coauthor
Main Output: Research Report
An investigation into the dynamics resulting from the economic collapse in the rental housing market. The study carves a reading of rental practices through analyzing and comparing data from multiple sources: field surveys, Housing Monitor case studies, and realtor data.
The report observes emergent housing dynamics cross-sectionally over the city and notes the tell-tale signs of the housing crisis.
Writings
- Haidar, J. & Hassan, R. (2021). “Housing as a Feminist Cause: Stories from the Housing Monitor.” Beirut: Public Works Studio. https://publicworksstudio.com/en/housing-as-a-feminist-cause/
- Haidar, J., Bekdache N. & Saksouk A. (2021). “Homelessness in the Wake of the Disaster.” Beirut: Public Works Studio. https://publicworksstudio.com/en/homelessness-in-the-wake-of-the-disaster/
- Haidar, J., Bekdache N., Trad R. & Saksouk A. (2020). “Migrant Workers and Refugees Are Facing a Dilemma as the Specter of Eviction Hovers in an Economic Crisis Threatening the Right to Housing.” Beirut: Public Works Studio. https://publicworksstudio.com/en/migrant-workers-and-refugees-are-facing-a-dilemma/
- Haidar, J., (2019). “Um Yumna’s Eviction: The Suburbs – A Destination for the City’s Most Vulnerable.” London–Beirut: RELIEF Centre / PROCOL Lebanon. https://www.relief-centre.org/um-yumnas-eviction
- Haidar, J. (2019). “Um Hassan’s New House: The Costs of Staying in the City.” London–Beirut: RELIEF Centre / PROCOL Lebanon. https://www.relief-centre.org/um-hassan
Jana Haidar 