Out of power


If you ever visit Beirut in Lebanon you will soon become familiar with the daily power cuts. Everyday for at least three hours, across the city, the electricity will go out for approximately three hours. They can often occur several times a day especially in the summer and, outside the capital, the cuts go on for much longer. The problem of electricity in Lebanon has a long history intertwined with politics and internal conflicts and these outages have almost become part of everyday life.

How does the darkness affect boundaries within the city? Is it another marker of social divides? The electricity shortage tries to rob people of one of their senses, some can pay to get it back and use generators. Others have to try to plan their day around the cuts, use alternative sources of light for period of darkness during the winter and have adapted using other sources of electricity.

I have been visiting the city for 2 years and as a foreigner, the daily power cuts seemed novel at first. However, as I spent longer in the country I started to realise that the lack of electricity exposed a crack in Lebanon's otherwise smooth veneer, and what we get used to in our day to day to life can obscure important questions about state inequalities and inefficiencies. Where is the end for Beirut (and Lebanon)’s electricity problems? How has this inefficiency become normal in a capital city in an age of huge technological advancements? What does the darkness reveal and what does it hide?

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