Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

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Hiba Bou Akar

Hiba Bou Akar is assistant professor in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University.

MER Article

Urban Interventions for the Wars Yet to Come

In a wide-ranging interview, Hiba Bou Akar shows how urban planning is being used to turn some neighborhoods and urban peripheries in the Middle East into militarized frontier zones between competing political, military and sectarian organizations guided by the dystopian logic of a war yet to come.

Hiba Bou Akar • 11 min read

Writing about Violence

Although we cannot pinpoint the exact origin of the idea to co-teach a comparative course on contemporary politics in the Middle East and Latin America, we remember well what followed from that initial decision in late 2015. First there was the excitement that accompanies an emergent sense of possibility. As

Roosbelinda Cárdenas, Hiba Bou Akar • 16 min read