Political life in Cairo's new quarters : encountering the everyday state / Salwa Ismail.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ismail, Salwa.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

City planning--Political aspects.

City planning.

Islam and politics.

Political participation.

Cairo (Egypt)--Politics and government.

Cairo (Egypt).

Political participation--Egypt--Cairo.

Islam and politics--Egypt--Cairo.

City planning--Political aspects--Egypt--Cairo.

Egypt--Cairo.

Physical Description:

xlvi, 230 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, [2006]

Summary:

Since the 1970s, Cairo has experienced tremendous growth and change. Nearly three million people now live in new urban communities characterized by unregulated housing, informal economic activity, and the presence of Islamist groups. Salwa Ismail examines the effects of these changes in Political Life in Cairo's New Quarters. Working in Cairo, Ismail interviewed new quarter residents, observed daily life in markets and alleyways, met with local leaders, and talked with young men about their encounters with the government. Rich in ethnographic detail, this work reveals the city's new urban quarters as sites not only of opposition and relative autonomy but also under governmental surveillance and discipline. In doing so, it situates the everyday within the context of wider developments in Cairo: the decline of welfarism, the shift to neoliberal government, and the rise of the security state. Original and timely, Political Life in Cairo's New Quarters highlights the interplay of structural changes, state power, and daily governance, and presents a fascinating analysis of urban transformation and power struggles-as international forces meet local communities in a major city of the global south.

Contents:

Introduction : space, politics, and the everyday state in Cairo

reconfiguring Cairo : new popular quarters between the local and the global

Internal governance : forms and practices of government in everyday life

Neoliberalism and the relocation of welfare

Youth, gender, and the state in Cairo : marginalized masculinities and contested spaces

The politics of security : an economy of violence and control

Postscript : collective action and the everyday state

Appendix A : the "field" and "home" : the politics of location

Appendix B : thematic outline of interview frames.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 197-207) and index.

ISBN:

0816649111

081664912X

OCLC:

69020928

Publisher Number:

9780816649112

9780816649129

Online:

Publisher description