On the 17th of December 2012, Caroline Rooney and Rita Sakr, in collaboration with May Maalouf at the Lebanese University, organised an interdisciplinary seminar on ‘Approaches to Trust-Building in the Context of Divided Beirut’. The seminar brought together participants from diverse backgrounds whose work engages with the question of how to re-establish trust in the aftermath or suspension of violent conflict. Participants included Julia Borossa (Middlesex University London), Chawki Azouri and Anicée el-Amin Merhi (psychoanalysts, Lebanon), Michael Kerr (Centre for Divided Societies, King’s College London), Monika Borgmann (UMAM Documentation&Research), Jeanine Jalkh (L’Orient le Jour), Sleiman Takydine (Assafir), Olga Kavran (Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Outreach&Legacy), Felicity Allen (artist and writer, London), Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige (visual artists and filmmakers, Paris), Aurélien Zouki (comedian, dancer, and puppeteer, Beirut and Paris), May Maalouf (Lebanese University), and Lebanese University English MA students. The seminar explored perspectives informed by psychoanalysis, education, archives and peace-building initiatives, journalism and international justice, and the visual arts. Excerpts from each of these panels are posted here:

Psychoanalytic and Educational Approaches to Trust-Building

Archives, Divided Memory, and Approaches to Peace-Building

The Role of Journalism and International Justice in Creating Trust

Visual Art and the Dynamics of Trust