Political Life in Cairo's New Quarters

Political Life in Cairo's New Quarters
Author: Salwa Ismail
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2006
Genre: Cairo (Egypt)
ISBN: 9781452908991

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Avenues of Participation

Avenues of Participation
Author: Diane Singerman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2020-09-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1400851769

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Intentionally excluded from formal politics in authoritarian states by reigning elites, do the common people have concrete ways of achieving community objectives? Contrary to conventional wisdom, this book demonstrates that they do. Focusing on the political life of the sha'b (or popular classes) in Cairo, Diane Singerman shows how men and women develop creative and effective strategies to accomplish shared goals, despite the dominant forces ranged against them. Starting at the household level in one densely populated neighborhood of Cairo, Singerman examines communal patterns of allocation, distribution, and decision-making. Combining the institutional focus of political science with the sensitivities of anthropology, she uncovers a system of informal networks, supported by an informal economy, that constitutes another layer of collective institutions within Egypt and allows excluded groups to pursue their interests. Avenues of Participation traces this informal system from its grounding in the family to its influence on the larger polity. Discussing the role of these networks in meeting fundamental needs in the community--such as earning a living, reproducing the family, saving and investing money, and coping with the bureaucracy--Singerman demonstrates the surprising power these "excluded" people wield. While the government has reduced politics to the realm of distribution to protect itself from challenges, she argues that the popular classes in Cairo, as consumers of goods and services, have turned exploiting the government into a fine art.

Unfinished Places: The Politics of (Re)making Cairo’s Old Quarters

Unfinished Places: The Politics of (Re)making Cairo’s Old Quarters
Author: Gehan Selim
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2016-11-10
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 131750626X

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The Emerging Politics of (Re) making Cairo's Old Quarters examines postcolonial planning practices that aimed to modernise Cairo’s urban spaces. The author examines the expanding field of postcolonial urbanism by linking the state’s political ideologies and systems of governance with methods of spatial representations that aimed to transform the urban realm in Cairo. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the study draws on planning, history and politics to develop a distinctive account of postcolonial planning in Cairo following Egypt’s 1952 revolution. The book widely connects the ideological role of a different type of politicised urbanism practised during the days of Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak and the overarching policies, institutions and attitudes involved in the visions for (re) building a new nation in Egypt. By examining the notion of remaking urban spaces, the study interprets the ambitions and powers of state policies for improving the spatial qualities of Cairo’s old districts since the early 20th century. These acts are situated in their spatial, political and historical contexts of Cairo’s heterogeneous old quarters and urban spaces particularly the remaking of one of the city’s older quarts named Bulaq Abul Ela established during the Ottoman rule in the thirteenth century. It therefore writes, in a chronological sequence, a narrative through time and space connecting various layers of historical and contemporary political phases for remaking Bulaq. The endeavor is to explain this process from a spatial perspective in terms of the implications and consequences not only on places, but also on the people’s everyday practices. By deeply investigating the problems and consequences; the strengths and weaknesses; and the state’s reliability to achieve the remaking objectives, the book reveals evidence that shifting forms of governance had anchored planning practices into a narrow path of creativity and responsive planning.

Development, Change, and Gender in Cairo

Development, Change, and Gender in Cairo
Author: Diane Singerman
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 236
Release: 1996-06-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780253116369

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"... the quality of each of these essays is excellent, and the book warrants extensive reading by political scientists, sociologists, and all scholars of the contemporary Middle East. -- American Journal of Sociology "This book's ethnographic material offers much to surprise and challenge assumptions about gender, Islam and social change in Egypt." -- MESA Bulletin "Taken together, these articles leave the reader with an excellent understanding of the realities of contemporary Egypt and a sense of the vitality and energy that permeates Cairo." -- Digest of Middle East Studies The essays presented here, based on extensive ethnographic research, focus on the Egyptian household as the key institution for understanding the dynamics of political, economic, and social change. Economic liberalization has had particular, often ambivalent consequences for low-income groups, especially women, and for gender relations.

Cairo Contested

Cairo Contested
Author: Diane Singerman
Publisher:
Total Pages: 488
Release: 2009
Genre: Cairo (Egypt)
ISBN: 9781617970351

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This volume 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.

Unfinished Places: The Politics of (Re)making Cairo’s Old Quarters

Unfinished Places: The Politics of (Re)making Cairo’s Old Quarters
Author: Gehan Selim
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 413
Release: 2016-11-10
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1317506251

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The Emerging Politics of (Re) making Cairo's Old Quarters examines postcolonial planning practices that aimed to modernise Cairo’s urban spaces. The author examines the expanding field of postcolonial urbanism by linking the state’s political ideologies and systems of governance with methods of spatial representations that aimed to transform the urban realm in Cairo. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the study draws on planning, history and politics to develop a distinctive account of postcolonial planning in Cairo following Egypt’s 1952 revolution. The book widely connects the ideological role of a different type of politicised urbanism practised during the days of Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak and the overarching policies, institutions and attitudes involved in the visions for (re) building a new nation in Egypt. By examining the notion of remaking urban spaces, the study interprets the ambitions and powers of state policies for improving the spatial qualities of Cairo’s old districts since the early 20th century. These acts are situated in their spatial, political and historical contexts of Cairo’s heterogeneous old quarters and urban spaces particularly the remaking of one of the city’s older quarts named Bulaq Abul Ela established during the Ottoman rule in the thirteenth century. It therefore writes, in a chronological sequence, a narrative through time and space connecting various layers of historical and contemporary political phases for remaking Bulaq. The endeavor is to explain this process from a spatial perspective in terms of the implications and consequences not only on places, but also on the people’s everyday practices. By deeply investigating the problems and consequences; the strengths and weaknesses; and the state’s reliability to achieve the remaking objectives, the book reveals evidence that shifting forms of governance had anchored planning practices into a narrow path of creativity and responsive planning.

The Rule of Violence

The Rule of Violence
Author: Salwa Ismail
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2018-08-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107032180

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Provides an original analysis of the routine and spectacular forms of violence deployed by the Asad regime in Syria over the last four decades.

Cairo Cosmopolitan

Cairo Cosmopolitan
Author: Diane Singerman
Publisher: American University in Cairo Press
Total Pages: 728
Release: 2009-08-01
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1617973904

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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.

The Rule of Violence

The Rule of Violence
Author: Salwa Ismail
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2018-08-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1108577245

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Over much of its rule, the regime of Hafez al-Asad and his successor Bashar al-Asad deployed violence on a massive scale to maintain its grip on political power. In this book, Salwa Ismail examines the rationalities and mechanisms of governing through violence. In a detailed and compelling account, Ismail shows how the political prison and the massacre, in particular, developed as apparatuses of government, shaping Syrians' political subjectivities, defining their understanding of the terms of rule and structuring their relations and interactions with the regime and with one another. Examining ordinary citizens' everyday life experiences and memories of violence across diverse sites, from the internment camp and the massacre to the family and school, The Rule of Violence demonstrates how practices of violence, both in their routine and spectacular forms, fashioned Syrians' affective life, inciting in them feelings of humiliation and abjection, and infusing their lived environment with dread and horror. This form of rule is revealed to be constraining of citizens' political engagement, while also demanding of their action.