The MERIP Podcast The MERIP Podcast Episode 16: Iman Ali In today’s episode Iman Ali talks about her recently published article, “Repair Amid Ongoing Ruination—Rebuilding Dahiyeh Once More,” which appeared in our Winter 2025 issue, “Reconstruction and Ruin.” Iman Ali, a doctoral candidate in anthropology at Cornell University, has been conducting fieldwork in Lebanon to investigate the impacts James Ryan, Iman Ali, Najib Hourani • 2 min read
Lebanese civilians clean streets of the debris from buildings destroyed by Israel in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, December 2024. Houssam Shbaro/Anadolu via Getty Images Repair Amid Ongoing Ruination—Rebuilding Dahiyeh Once More Standing beside a destroyed building in Dahiyeh in September 2025, a fruit seller said to me, “I want to bring Naim Qassem [Hizballah’s new secretary general] here. I want to show him the damage. Our people need to do better.” He knew that, like him, I was Shia, and Iman Ali • 11 min read
