Marten Boekelo

Marten holds Master’s degrees in Philosophy (Catholic University of Louvain), Anthropology (Free University of Amsterdam) and Social Sciences (University of Chicago). His PhD research project at the ASSR proposes a study of the role of Beirut in the constitution of a new public sphere in the ‘era of reconstruction’. Beirut as an idea has focused public debate on the nature of a – post-war – polity, whereas Beirut as a material form provides particular constraints and possibilities for shared public presence. The aim is understand how this city, through the changes that have been forced upon it, organizes the attempt to (re)define and shape membership in society. When people give new form to the urban landscape, they also attempt to shape social life within it. Thus, he will analyze the public debates concerning particular interventions in the urban form, paying particular attention to the values and characters specific places have for different groups of people, and study the interactions of people with urban space. Ultimately, this study should inform a critical perspective on the public sphere and civil society theory, by bringing to the fore the concrete, material conditions of possibility for social and public life. Besides carrying out fieldwork and writing the dissertation, honing his skills in how to describe oneself from a fictitious third person perspective is also an essential part of Marten’s PhD trajectory.