Al-Khiam as Palimpsest

Visuality, Political Spectacle, and Specters of Injury in Lebanon

Bibliographic Data

ID17816375
AuthorsMadonna Kalousian (0000-0002-5625-2931, King's College London, corresponding author)
Year2026
Pages1-23
Publication date2026-04-22
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMiddle East Critique (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1943-6149 • E-ISSN: 1943-6157
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/19436149.2026.2656957
OpenAlexW7155215408
LanguageEN
References cited22

This article approaches Al-Khiam Detention Center as a site of individual and collective injury, one whose distinct histories have been strategically appropriated by multiple political entities. It argues that the visual, as practiced by artists Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, brings to the surface traces of personal and individualized experiences of incarceration which would have otherwise remained buried. This article first provides a historical overview of the birth of Al-Khiam, identifies the role multiple political actors have played in the construction and reconstruction of its material, symbolic, and ideological significance, and then examines the implications of Hezbollah’s museification of it, a process premised primarily upon homogenized notions of resistance. This article finally contends that the visual intervention enables a political contestation of the symbolic re-mediation of the Al-Khiam, while producing a genealogical-archaeological understanding of its many temporalities, and a palimpsestic discovery of its accumulating pasts.

Government (linguistics) · Iraq war · Politics · Spanish Civil War · Terrorism · Middle East Politics and Society · North African History and Literature · Public Spaces through Art

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