Paper short abstract:

In a fragmented society, we argue that action-research and participatory design can build the capacity for intra-city dialogue across the different dimensions of identity of local residents.

Paper long abstract:

In a fragmented society, we argue that action-research and participatory design can build the capacity for intra-city dialogue across the different dimensions of identity of local residents. However, traditional participatory processes are often unable to deal with internal diversity, particularly when there are pre-existing conflicts. Using a collaboration between two universities, an NGO, and local residents in Bar Elias (Lebanon) as a case study, we demonstrate how the development of an intersectional methodology sensitive to social diversity can contribute to individual and groups of residents developing an "aware participation" in city-making and in setting the vision for the city. Bar Elias is a town which significantly increased its population with the arrival of people displaced from the Syrian war and hosts Syrians, Palestinians and Lebanese but presents spatial segregation. The entrance road to the town was chosen as the site of the action-research and participatory design to plan and implement small-scale social infrastructure enhancements which could help address a number of vulnerabilities faced by different groups of residents. By analysing the process of implementing a participatory spatial intervention, the chapter argues that the outcome of the process was more than the physical infrastructure intervention; the process built a human infrastructure made of residents from different identities of the city who are able to participate in and initiate city-making processes that take into account and analyse the diversity of needs and aspirations. Through the process, residents are able to exercise a new kind of urban participatory citizenship that transcends the limitations of traditional state citizenship