Journal Article

Cultural Heritage Destruction and Construction in Border Disputes: A Case Study of South Lebanon

Sherine Al Shallah

2025

Overview

The southern borders of Lebanon have long been the focus of a territorial dispute, implicating cultural heritage in two key ways. Firstly, the destruction of tangible – and, to some extent, intangible – cultural heritage has been used to weaken the Lebanese population’s connection to borderlands in the south of Lebanon and to reinforce population displacement. Secondly, museum collections and archaeological claims are employed to construct national historical narratives, effectively attributing parts of southern Lebanon’s heritage to other nations and legitimizing associated territorial claims by states linked to those nations. These practices reflect a broader tension between cultural heritage as a national concern, tied to human rights, and as a state concern, tied to territorial sovereignty. Examining them offers both academic insight – contributing to debates on cultural heritage, nations, and states – and practical policy relevance, given their impact on ongoing border demarcation in southern Lebanon. This article explores the intersection of territorial sovereignty and cultural heritage through analysing the international doctrine applied to Lebanon’s southern borders. It reviews the scholarship on transboundary heritage, the link between state succession and cultural heritage, the national characterization of heritage, and its connection to human rights. The study engages with concepts of culture, heritage, identity, territory, statehood, and borders within the Lebanese context and adopts a multidisciplinary approach, drawing on archaeology, ethnography, anthropology, and history.

• Publisher: Jagiellonian University-Jagiellonian University Press,BACHLaw Foundation
• Subject: Archaeology / Cultural heritage / Human rights / Sovereignty / Territorial issues