Volumes 29- 20 

Abstract:

This monograph centers on the effort to understand the issue of return migration to Palestine from a sociological point of view. It is made of six papers that examine various human situations among Palestinians, ranging from villages that have been divided by borders such as the “Green Line” to populations of Palestinian origin that have been cut off from their roots in Palestine and are now seeking to establish their lives elsewhere. The last two papers deal with real and virtual efforts at return to Palestine by two quite different groups (youth and technical experts). The theme that runs through these papers is the role of borders and boundaries—those that people seek to cross and those that the wider political processes establish around existing populations.
The papers are also contributions to the dilemmas that faced different segments of the Palestinian population in the period preceding the construction of the Israeli wall, beginning in 2005, which further cut up and divided the Palestinian areas and prevented some of the patterns of movement that had emerged since the Oslo agreement in 1993. Contributors: Sari Hanafi, Shereen al-Araj, Mary Totry, Cédric Parizot, Mohamed Kamel Doraï, and Tamara Tamimi.

Abstract:

This monograph centers on the effort to understand the issue of return migration to Palestine from a sociological point of view. It is made of six papers that examine various human situations among Palestinians, ranging from villages that have been divided by borders such as the “Green Line” to populations of Palestinian origin that have been cut off from their roots in Palestine and are now seeking to establish their lives elsewhere. The last two papers deal with real and virtual efforts at return to Palestine by two quite different groups (youth and technical experts). The theme that runs through these papers is the role of borders and boundaries—those that people seek to cross and those that the wider political processes establish around existing populations.
The papers are also contributions to the dilemmas that faced different segments of the Palestinian population in the period preceding the construction of the Israeli wall, beginning in 2005, which further cut up and divided the Palestinian areas and prevented some of the patterns of movement that had emerged since the Oslo agreement in 1993. Contributors: Sari Hanafi, Shereen al-Araj, Mary Totry, Cédric Parizot, Mohamed Kamel Doraï, and Tamara Tamimi.

Abstract:

In the autumn of 2005, a group of young male Sudanese refugees organized a protest against the policies of UNHCR Cairo. Using the protest as a vehicle for exploring the difficulties encountered by young male Sudanese refugees, their motivations for initiating or joining the protest, this study examines the ways in which pursuit of personal and collective agency intersect with ideals of masculine respectability and attainment. It outlines an “ideal” Sudanese masculinity, operating among young male refugees in Cairo, The pursuit of which is evident in the mobilization of protestors, their roles during the event and participation in refugee associations. Other findings contrast masculine distinction with their frustrated desires for respectable employment, relations with women, value in the eyes of their communities and a meaningful existence without poverty, fear and uncertainty about the future.

Abstract:

This is a case study of thirteen Romanian/Egyptian couples presently living in Cairo. Based on unstructured interviews, it focuses on three interrelated aspects of these mixed marriages. First, it investigates the wider contexts that allowed the formation of mixed families, in relation to the movement between the two countries, state regulations, and public opinions. Second, it describes the practices in which the couples engage in terms of household organization, gender relations, and kinship.
Finally, it looks at the role of religion in the lives of mixed couples and how both the men and the women position themselves in this regard. Because a proper understanding of the mixed couples’ lives can arise only if one places them at the intersection between everyday practices and larger structures, be they political, economic or ideological, the study presents not only the positions, opinions, and practices of the mixed families but also the situation that can be found in both countries in relation to each particular aspect mentioned above.

This research contributes to our understanding of family in Egypt. Even if mixed marriages occupy a marginal place in contemporary Egyptian society, by looking at them, as a site of negotiations and compromises, one could gain some insights into aspects of Egyptian family life that could be overlooked in studies that focus only on marriages between Egyptians. In many cases, the most significant aspects of people’s lives gain prominence and become evident especially when crossing boundaries.

Abstract:

This issue of Cairo Papers is dedicated to the late Cynthia Nelson, an outstanding professor of anthropology at AUC and the founding director of the Institute of Gender and Women’s Studies, who passed away in 2006.

The articles in this issue feature selections from some of her essays published during her scholarly career, grouped under three main themes: phenomenology and the meaning of religious phenomena in Egypt; women, power and politics in the Middle East; and the politics and ethics of location. Together they allow us to see the trajectory of her intellectual development over a career. Marked by strong continuities of focus, her works also reveal shifts in treatment that reflect both her own changing relationship to Egypt and transformations in the wider intellectual world.

Cynthia Nelson was the editor of the very first monograph of the Cairo Papers in Social Science in 1977.  Thirty years later, this volume can mark her wonderful legacy to the humanistic and social scientific understanding of Egypt, a legacy balanced by the enormous institutional contributions she made to establishing feminist anthropology in Egypt.

Abstract:

This monograph is an attempt to fill a research gap regarding the phenomenology of Egyptian women‘s experiences and perceptions of affective suffering and psycho-social distress. Taking an aim to deconstruct disciplinary boundaries, it presents a cross-cultural insight into the interplay among women, culture, and psychological illness, illness triggers, prevalent hierarchies of resort, and common treatment results.
The proposed fieldwork methodology is based on a conviction that women’s lives and health experience must be personally and locally grounded. Furthermore, due to its reflexive quality, “triangulated” qualitative and analytical methodologies were employed. Conventional data gathering methods were combined with “invisible methods of data gathering.” The main informants—depressed women aged 20-45 and Egyptian psychiatrists—were recruited through a snowball sampling approach.

Abstract:

This issue focuses on emerging themes in the cultural field in contemporary Egypt. Over the past two decades, the Egyptian society has been witnessing major transformations in the political, economic, social and cultural fields. Much of these changes have been addressed in terms of the impact of economic liberalization and structural adjustment policies, with a focus on the political and economic implications of these policies. However, recent transformations in the cultural scene have received less attention.
Emerging cultural phenomena are partly due to these policies and partly due to the impact of integration into a globalizing world. These phenomena are products of the interaction between local and global forces, and are also inseparable from the overall processes of social transformation taking place in Egyptian society. The issue comprises a number of papers discussing some of these phenomena with regard to language, cinema, consumption, mulids, crafts, cuisines, and food production.

Abstract:

This monograph explores the relationship between poverty reduction, local administration, and empowerment in Egypt. Examining the link between poverty, participation, and local administration in three governorates--Alexandria, Kafr al-Sheikh and Assiut, it looks into the evolution of the local administration laws and argues that the absence of an adequate system of local administration in Egypt discourages participation, thus hindering sustainable poverty reduction.

Comparing the incidence of poverty, HDI, and participation in the three governorates, it reveals a reversed relationship between poverty and electoral participation due to the nature of rural leadership and the demands-driven pattern of local participation in Egypt. It also points out the sharp decline in female representation in local councils demonstrating the failure of these councils to empower the poorest segments of society, such as women.

Presenting the vicious circle of maladministration in Egypt and exploring some attempts to achieve sustainable poverty reduction, the study concludes with a number of recommendations to improve the system of local administration in order to render it a catalyst for empowerment and poverty reduction in Egypt.

Abstract:

The objective of this study is to explore sexual interactions between Egyptian men and foreign women in Dahab, South Sinai, and their constructions of sexuality, risk, and reproductive health. It examines these interactions at the intersections of globalization, tourism, and the hegemonic demands of family and gender within the Egyptian society.

Central to my analysis are the ways in which working class Egyptian men living in Dahab rely on their sexuality as a survival strategy in the face of an increasingly globalized economy. It argues that in the cultural context of tourism and class struggle in Dahab, ‘urfi marriage and sexuality emerge as counter-cultural strategies for surviving poverty in Egypt in the face of an increasingly globalizing economy.
It further shows that the gender struggles that emerge between these Egyptian men and foreign women complexify colonial theorizations of sexuality that highlight relations between European men and native women in modified and post-colonial forms. In Dahab, foreign women negotiate their sexuality as simultaneously class privileged tourists and targets of Egyptian patriarchy, while Egyptian men confront the violences of globalization on white women’s bodies.

Abstract:

This pioneering, multidisciplinary volume, explores a rich constellation of ideas toward the natural environment in the Middle East and their philosophical, political, historical and gendered roots. It does this through close textual analyses of the Epic of Gilgamesh (Sharif Elmusa), Hayy Ibn Yazan and Robinson Cruzo (Robert Switzer), the Letter of the Animals (Elizabeth Sartain), and modern Egyptian fiction (Maysa Hayward).
These are framed by an editor’s introduction and an article by John McNeill, author of Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth Century, winner of 2001 World History Association Book Award.

Abstract:

The problem of street children in Egypt has gained attention in recent years due to the relentless efforts of Egyptian NGOs that care for street children, and because of the role played by researchers and the media to shed light on its magnitude and associated hazards. The present research aims to explore this problem by focusing on the major characteristics of street children, commonly known at the street milieu as the ‘Sewas,’ and investigating their basic demographics, the basis of their group formation and dynamics, their networks of interaction and relations, and the major constituents of their subculture.

The research argues that the Sewas, as a distinctive social group, have developed various scenarios to survive the cruel conditions they encounter in the street and to cope with its various forms of vulnerability and jeopardy. They have created and developed a network of relations that enable them to use and exploit urban space through a wide set of strategic knowledge of urban settings, and the projection of different skills and survival mechanisms that help them maximize the utility of their surrounding unpredictable social environment.

New children to the street are usually incorporated into and absorbed by these networks of relations, and are often forced to face the choice between gaining group acceptance and membership; or abandoning these networks, and exposing themselves to being sporadic ‘derelicts,’ who can easily be harassed and exploited.

Abstract:

This monograph assesses the modus-operandi of IMF-Egyptian debt negotiations using four agreements in 1987, 1991, 1993, and 1996. Political, technocratic, and individual bargaining factors are considered as possible explanations of processes and outcomes of IMF-Egyptian negotiations. Both the 1987 and 1991 agreements were suspiciously negotiated with political factors dominating processes and outcomes.
Egypt’s geopolitical role in international affairs is carefully examined as a possible variable.  The final two agreements, signed in 1993 and 1996, were less clouded by political factors ushering in a greater possibility of IMF due process to work. The more than ten-year IMF-Egyptian relationship was not without controversy and difficulty.  From the role of the IMF in the American debt forgiveness of Egypt following the Gulf War to the ever-contentious issue of devaluing the Egyptian pound, dealing with the IMF has been an important feature of Egypt’s politicking. 

Abstract:

The present study is research inspired by different fields, from 2000 to 2004, on the theme of forced migrations in Egypt and Sudan.

We observed different communities, originally from African countries--Ethiopians, Eritrean, Sudanese; in exile in urban settings or refugee camps. The common point for these different communities is that they all come from some of the poorest countries in the world. Conflicts and hunger had followed each other for centuries giving the populations of the Horn a very high sense of vulnerability that can be translated into forced movements. Geographical coherence had put Sudan as the first door for people on the move; Egypt was the second traditional gate on the way to the West. Our purpose is to explore step forced migrations (from Sudan to Egypt) as a transit essence in “gates sites”. The published material tends to explore the territories built by the refugees and the multiplicity of the relations between migrants and their hosts in the context of the city and the neighborhood. Our approach, and consequently the results of the field research, demonstrates the complexity of interactionism through everyday experience, daily and ordinary meetings and contacts between refugees and their hosts. This patchwork of communities in exile has a heuristic ambition to stress the common destiny of African movers in the Arab World and to focus on the new paradigm of South-South migrations.

This study aims to invite scholars to contribute to further meditation and innovative approaches to the forced migrations through the empirical experience of communities on the move illustrating globalization from below. Treating refugees flows in the light of interactions is enlightening the moving process and circulation of the poorest souls in this world.

Abstract:

This issue is a collection of papers given at the Cairo Papers Tenth Annual Symposium held in May 2001 on “Elections in the Middle East”. The papers cover parliamentary and presidential elections in Egypt, Sudan, Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, and Algeria, held during the period 1999-2001. In general, papers addressed the issue of elections in these countries in the context of the major challenges facing them such as democratization, political stability, and political participation.

Abstract:

This study addresses the job options of female graduates in Egypt.  It argues that the labor market favors graduates who are able to speak foreign languages and have the style and disposition of the elite. This preference puts female graduates who do not have these qualifications at a decided disadvantage. They have to either suffice with less rewarding jobs in small-scale firms or stay at home.  

Female graduates find many problems in working in private-sector small-scale firms, such as low pay, exhausting workload, long working hours and the fear of sexual harassment.  They, therefore, cling to the hope of finding a governmental job which is not easily attainable at present. The aim of this study is to document how the above subtle process of exclusion takes place and how less privileged female graduates strategize their options to fit with the structure of the labor market.

Abstract:

This research discusses the education system in Jerusalem, the proclaimed capital city of two national communities. It explores both aspects of the Palestinian education system in East Jerusalem, namely the physical conditions provided by the Israeli government and the curriculum for national education used by the PA. 
It compares the latter with the Israeli curriculum for the public, secular Jewish education in West Jerusalem and illustrates how the East Jerusalem education system may affect the attitudes that Palestinian children develop regarding Israel and the Israeli people. It is shown that the combined impact of the experience of Israeli occupation and the pedagogical uses of Palestinian nationalism, as well as the nationalist content of Israeli education, will encourage attitudes in Jerusalemite children that will prolong the conflict between the two peoples and undermine the hopes for peace and coexistence.

Abstract:

This volume represents revised versions of a collection of papers presented at Cairo Papers Ninth Annual Symposium on "The New Arab Family", held in May 2000.  Marriage, divorce, and related topics of the course were center stage, particularly in the demographic papers. A further idea was to combine two very different approaches to the study of the family--on the one hand demographics, on the other broadly sociological or anthropological, or as some would say, psychodynamic, that is to say, focusing on dyadic or multi-member networks of relationships within the family.
Some of these papers, in turn, focused on ëagencyí, the ways in which individual action fit into cultural and social frames. The research covered a good deal of the Arab world, though in the end with a focus on Egypt. In addition to general papers relying on demographic data from different parts of the Arab world, we have case studies from Tunisia, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia.

Abstract:

This study aims at exploring polygyny in rural Egypt.  It particularly investigates gender relations in polygynous marriages--whether they are a mere reflection of social and economic factors in the society and whether they are subject to change as both men and women try to achieve their personal goals, and seeks to present an account of the economic, political, social, and cultural reasons for polygyny in rural Egypt.
This is done through exploring how gender relations influence and are influenced by the economic (financial) and residential dynamics in polygynous households; interpersonal relations in polygynous households with special emphasis on the means through which women seek to gain status and power compared to co-wives and/or in-laws; and the interaction between income-based gender relationships and sexual relationships. These aspects will be analyzed among the different socioeconomic groups in order to determine how the level and source of income determine gender relations in the different groups.

Abstract:

This study investigates Islamic women’s activism with a focus on the Islamic women’s movement in Cairo to interpret the impact of their activism on women’s self-empowerment. The author argues that Islamic women’s activism cannot be adequately understood in terms of liberal feminists. Rather, she proposes an approach that relies on these women’s perspectives as a guiding factor in assessing the impact of their activism. Islamic women activists are pursuing their self-enhancement through perfecting their religious practice in order to arrive at a Muslim notion of the ideal woman.
Their empowerment is engendered as they perfect themselves through religious discipline. The study concludes that the applicability of the notions of “empowerment” and “agency” as understood in western liberal paradigms need to be re-evaluated with regards to Islamic women activists.