Bringing together a distinguished interdisciplinary group of scholars, this volume explores what happens when new forms of privatization meet collectivist pasts, public space is sold off to satisfy investor needs and tourist gazes, and the state plans for Egypt’s future in desert cities while stigmatizing and neglecting Cairo’s popular neighborhoods. These dynamics produce surprising contradictions and juxtapositions that are coming to define today’s Middle East. The original publication of this volume launched the Cairo School of Urban Studies, committed to fusing political-economy and ethnographic methods and sensitive to ambivalence and contingency, to reveal the new contours and patterns of modern power emerging in the urban frame. Contributors: Mona Abaza, Nezar AlSayyad, Paul Amar, Walter Armbrust, Vincent Battesti, Fanny Colonna, Eric Denis, Dalila ElKerdany, Yasser Elsheshtawy, Farha Ghannam, Galila El Kadi, Anouk de Koning, Petra Kuppinger, Anna Madoeuf, Catherine Miller, Nicolas Puig, Said Sadek, Omnia El Shakry, Diane Singerman, Elizabeth A. Smith, Leïla Vignal, Caroline Williams.
Cairo Cosmopolitan
Politics, Culture, and Urban Space in the New Globalized Middle East
Edited by
Diane Singerman
Paul Amar
564 pp.
80 b/w illus., 21 tables, 2 maps
15X23cm
ISBN 9789774162893
For sale worldwide
19.99
Also available by this author
Cairo Contested
Governance, Urban Space, and Global Modernity
Edited by Diane SingermanThis cross-disciplinary, ethnographic, contextualized, and empirical volume—with an updated introduction to take account of the dramatic events of early 2011—explores the meaning and significance of urban space, and maps the spatial inscription of power on the mega-city of Cairo. Suspicious of collective life and averse to power-sharing, Egyptian governance structures weaken but do not stop the public’s role in the remaking of their city. What happens to a city where neo-liberalism has scaled back public services and encouraged the privatization of public goods, while the vast majority cannot afford the effects of such policies? Who wins and loses in the “march to the modern and the global” as the government transforms urban spaces and markets in the name of growth, security, tourism, and modernity? How do Cairenes struggle with an ambiguous and vulnerable legal and bureaucratic environment when legality is a privilege affordable only to the few or the connected? This companion volume to Cairo Cosmopolitan further develops the central insights of the Cairo School of Urban Studies.
...read more
Paperback
536 pp.15X23cm
19.95
Related products
Arab Spring in Egypt
Revolution and Beyond
Edited by Bahgat KoranyRabab El-Mahdi
Beginning in Tunisia, and spreading to as many as seventeen Arab countries, the street protests of the ‘Arab Spring’ in 2011 empowered citizens and banished their fear of speaking out against governments. The Arab Spring belied Arab exceptionalism, widely assumed to be the natural state of stagnation in the Arab world amid global change and progress. The collapse in February 2011 of the regime in the region’s most populous country, Egypt, led to key questions of why, how, and with what consequences did this occur? Inspired by the “contentious politics” school and Social Movement Theory, Arab Spring in Egypt addresses these issues, examining the reasons behind the collapse of Egypt’s authoritarian regime; analyzing the group dynamics in Tahrir Square of various factions: labor, youth, Islamists, and women; describing economic and external issues and comparing Egypt’s transition with that of Indonesia; and reflecting on the challenges of transition. “Its analysis is as fresh as the breathtaking events it covers.”—Nathan Brown, George Washington University “Arab Spring in Egypt is a modern history study that brings much greater understanding to light about the views of modern Arab people and the future they see for their country.”—Midwest Book Review
...read more
Paperback
364 pp.15X23cm
18.95
Beyond the Victim
The Politics and Ethics of Empowering Cairo’s Street Children
Kamal FahmiStreet children—abandoned or runaway children living on their own—can be found in cities all over the world, and their numbers are growing despite numerous international programs aimed at helping them. All too frequently, these children are viewed solely as victims or deviants to be rescued and rehabilitated. In Beyond the Victim, sociologist Kamal Fahmi draws on eight years of fieldwork with street children in Cairo to portray them in a much different—and empowering—light. Fahmi argues that, far from being mere victims or deviants, these children, in running away from alienating home lives and finding relative freedom in the street, are capable of actively defining their situations in their own terms. They are able to challenge the roles assigned to children, make judgments, and develop a network of niches and resources in a teeming metropolis such as Cairo. Fahmi suggests that social workers and others need to respect the agency the children display in changing their own lives. In addition to collective advocacy with and on behalf of street children, social workers should empower them by encouraging their voluntary participation in non-formal educational activities.
...read more
Hardbound
216 pp.13 illus. incl. 5 in color
15X23cm
19.95
Copts at the Crossroads
The Challenges of Building Inclusive Democracy in Egypt
Mariz TadrosIn the light of the escalation of sectarian tensions during and after Mubarak’s reign, the predicament of the Arab world’s largest religious minority, the Copts, has come to the forefront. This book poses such questions as why there has been a mass exodus of Copts from Egypt, and how this relates to other religious minorities in the Arab region; why it is that sectarian violence increased during and after the 2011 Revolution, which epitomized the highest degree of national unity since 1919; and how the new configuration of power has influenced the extent to which a vision of a political order is being based on the principles of inclusive democracy. The book examines the relations among the state, the Church, Coptic citizenry, and civil and political societies against the backdrop of the increasing diversification of actors, the change of political leadership in the country, and the transformations occurring in the region. An informative historical background is provided, and new fieldwork and statistical data inform a thoughtful exploration of what it takes to build an inclusive democracy in post-Mubarak Egypt.
...read more
Paperback
320 pp.15X23cm
24.95
Cultural Dynamics in Contemporary Egypt
Cairo Papers Vol. 27, No. 1/2
Edited by Maha AbdelrahmanIman A. Hamdy
Malak S. Rouchdy
Reem Saad
From the politics of food to images in the media, this double issue of Cairo Papers in Social Science focuses on a wide array of emerging cultural patterns in modern-day Egypt and their social, political, and economic ramifications. All the contributions are based on papers delivered at the Cairo Papers Thirteenth Annual Symposium in May 2004, and cover four broad areas: media and language, Islamic marketing, taste and public space, and food and markets. Contributors include Ray Bush (‘Staying Hungry: Food Politics in Egypt and the Near East’), Sami Zubaida (‘Food: Egypt and the Middle East’), Lilia Labidi (‘Truth Claims in the Cartoon World of Nagui Kamel’), Madiha Doss (‘Cultural Dynamics and Linguistic Practice in Contemporary Egypt’), Huda Lutfi (‘Mulid Culture in Cairo: The Case of al-Sayyida A’isha’), Maha Abdelrahman (‘Divine Consumption: Islamic Goods in Egypt’), Iman A. Hamdy (‘Watch for the Devil: Israel in Egyptian Movies and Soap Operas’), Malak S. Rouchdy (‘Food Recipes and the Kitchen Space: The Construction of Social Identities and New Frontiers’), and Reem Saad (‘Transforming the Meaning and Value of Traditional Crafts in Egypt’). Cairo Papers Vol. 27, nos. 1 & 2.
...read more
Paperback
192 pp.14X21cm
19.95