The typical life course of a young woman in Egypt today is significantly different from that of her mother when she came of age a generation ago. In this dissertation, I focus on differences between the experiences of the current generation of female youth and those of their mothers with respect to education, employment and marriage. Using quantitative and qualitative data, I examine both empirical trends and how women themselves make sense of these changes. My main argument is that popular understandings of socio-cultural change in the area of gender relations, which may conflict with the statistical indicators that are commonly used to measure women's empowerment, are undervalued by social scientists in the study of social transformation.
"... 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.
The Egyptian economy has faced many challenges in the decade since the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings. Not only was job creation anaemic from 2012 to 2018, but new jobs were also of low-quality, characterized by informality and vulnerability to economic shocks. These challenges pushed many in Egypt, especially the most vulnerable, into a more precarious labor market situation. Then, in the midst of economic recovery brought on by tough reform measures adopted in 2016 and 2017, the country was hit by the widespread disruption of a global pandemic. This book examines the plight of Egypt's most vulnerable groups by focusing on the intersection of gender and economic vulnerability in the labor market. With this emphasis on vulnerability and a lens that is sensitive to gender differences and inequities, the contributors to this volume use data from the most recent wave of a unique longitudinal survey to illuminate different aspects of Egyptians' lives. The aspects they explore include labor supply behavior, the ability to access good quality and well-paying jobs, the evolution of wages and wage inequality, the school-to-work transition of youth, the decline in public sector employment, international and internal migration, the situation of rural women, access to social protection, food security, vulnerability to shocks and coping mechanisms, health status, and access to health care services. These analyses are prescient in understanding the axes of vulnerability in Egyptian society that became all too salient during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Abstract: Arab Spring is commonly associated to youth mobilization and their dissatisfaction with respective Arab authoritarian regimes. This empirical study explores such claim through tracing various social, political and demographic indicators as determinants of generational value change in post-2011 Egypt. It employs a generational perspective in discovering such values following Karl Mannheim‟s definition of generations. Mannheim argued that a political generation is composed of a birth cohort sharing similar values through a multifaceted historical process of socialization. The theoretical framework guiding considerable portion of this study is Ronald Inglehart‟s “intergenerational value change thesis.” Inglehart argues that there is an ongoing transnational value shift towards “postmaterialism,” which includes self-expression, quality of life and sense of belonging values with less emphasis on “materialist” values of traditionalism and security concerns. For Inglehart, younger generations are more likely to be postmaterialists given that their formative experiences are shaped through socioeconomic prosperity if compared to older cohorts. In this study, I aim to address central inquiry on whether youth values are different from their older peers and its relevance to the 2011 events in Egypt. In doing so, this reaserach below, starts by inspecting the relevance of postmaterialism argument to Egyptian youth within international and regional contexts. Secondly, it maps out generational trends in relevance to political values. And finally investigate social parameters‟ effects aiming at scrutinizing changing youth values in post 2011 Egypt. Most of studies on youth in Egypt and the Middle East are yet historical or anecdotal. In this project below, we examine secondary data from the World Values Survey and the Arab Barometer collected between 2001 and 2013. In order to untangle the unique effects of our proposed forecasters, we run multiple regressions instead of conventional bivariate associations and percentage distributions. On the whole, we find very limited support for Inglehart‟s thesis in explaining the Egyptian case. Although younger generation shows more propensities for postmaterialism, nevertheless the relative salience of such values is low in Egypt. We call for reconsidering Inglehart‟s model in developing nations. Moreover, we find evidence for cohort value variance in regard to some political and social values. However, part of these differences is related to intra-cohort aging effects. Thus, we cast doubt for the youth uniqueness claim and call for its refinement. Furthermore, we cast additional doubt for the claim on the liberal nature of young Egyptians. In addition, we find considerable support for youth fragmentation in Egypt. Much of the division among them is explained by demographic factors. Overall, this study opens the door for future qualitative studies through investigating our proposed criticisms and doubts on the existing claims on the youth distinctiveness in Egypt who agitated the 2011 uprising.
This book identifies chances and barriers women face in their transition to adulthood in Egypt, Iran, Jordan, and Syria. Adopting a life course perspective, it provides a new integrative micro-macro-theoretical framework and innovative analyses of individual life courses based on longitudinal data.
The situation unfolding in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab Middle East has important implications for the future of the Arab political order. For the first time, a secular but inclusive political alternative to Islamism has emerged. It has captured the political imagination of the emerging Arab middle class. It will shape the regional security environment. Its consequences are unpredictable but the greatest risk to the region is the marginalization and alienation of a movement that has raised and galvanized its political horizons. Robert Bowker In his book Egypt and the Politics of Change in the Arab Middle East, Professor Robert Bowker argues that if regimes fail to address effectively the demands for empowerment of its educated youth, they face the prospect of a tsunami-like current of instability and regression. Ambassador Bowker s new book achieves the challenging objective of making a contribution to scholarship on Egypt and the Arab world while being accessible to a general audience. He addresses the key drivers of change, such as globalization and Islamicization, and the entrenched attitudes, behavior and institutions they confront. Drawing upon an impressive array of empirical information, case studies and first hand observations, he both illustrates and assesses the contending forces and the likely outcomes of their confrontations. Robert Springborg, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, US [This book is] certain to be a valued and respected addition to the literature on the eve of a potentially transformational moment in Egyptian history and thus possibly for the Arab world as well. Jerrold D. Green, Pacific Council on International Policy, Los Angeles, US In this illuminating and informed book, Robert Bowker tackles the prospects for change in the contemporary Arab world. He persuasively argues that while long-term demographic, educational, and social transformations pose formidable challenges for the future, the important issues of political reform, Islamism, and regional security are contestable. The message that this book so engagingly conveys is that change is both inevitable and not necessarily to be feared. It is a refreshingly constructive, and timely, reminder for all who would see the new Middle East as destined to be volatile and precarious. James Piscatori, Durham University, UK Dr Bowker s study provides the best encapsulation and explanation of changes in the Arab world s social and economic landscape in an age of faster and deeper interdependence. Measured and sober in its analysis, and challenging in its conclusions, it should be read by all those who want to have a better understanding of the Middle East in general, and Egypt in particular. Amin Saikal, The Australian National University Egypt and the Politics of Change in the Arab Middle East is a forward-looking analysis of the relationship between economic and political reform in Egypt, and of the evolving nature of Arab society and political culture both in Egypt and elsewhere. Writing from the perspective of a recently retired ambassador with extensive Arab regional experience, Robert Bowker discusses the potential impact of systemic resistance to pressures for greater transparency, accountability and political reform amid ongoing demographic, educational and generational changes. His analysis encompasses the military and security services, the influence of the shadow state and the impact of social surveillance, coercion and corruption. Looking ahead, he discusses emerging business models, returning Arab expatriates, the gradual empowerment of women and the impact of Islam. He considers the political sustainability of economic reform, including the challenges facing marginalized groups. His analysis concludes by reviewing the regional security and political context of reform, the importance of political leadership over the coming decade and the role of external parties. Compelling, insightful and thought-provoking, the book provid
The history of ancient Egypt is filled with fascinating queens and goddesses portrayed side by side with their male counterparts as equal partners, each playing a different and distinct role in society. Anyone interested in their identity and achievements can go to popular or academic sources, and find ample material on the subject. How about their descendants: contemporary Egyptian women? Who are they? What do we know about them, or about their accomplishments? Only scarce and limited information is available. In recent years, however, since the ill-named “Arab Spring,” images of Egyptian women have flooded TV screens and print media showing them among crowds of shouting demonstrators. Reports have focused on their trials and tribulations, and their regressive condition. This book seeks to highlight Egyptian women that the media have overlooked and ignored. It focuses on a sample of 38 pioneers, ground-breakers, and achievers in nearly all professions: academe, the arts, banking, development, diplomacy, economics, engineering, entrepreneurship, finance, government, medicine, public relations, science and technology, social services, sports, international relations, and international organizations. Their successes in Egypt and elsewhere have been recognized and honored by some of the highest national and international institutions and governments. Forgotten or unknown habits, practices, and historical events occurring in the twentieth century, both in Egypt and other parts of the globe, are also discussed in these stories. The objective of the book is three-pronged. It breaks the monolithic and unflattering stereotype of contemporary Egyptian women as victims, uneducated and uncivilized, dominated by men. The second is to make the world aware of modern Egyptian champions who are improving the quality of life in the societies and broader environments in which they live and work. The third purpose is to provide positive role models for new generations of women in Egypt and beyond, to inspire them to set their goals very high despite the obstacles they may encounter, and show them that the sky is not the limit.
For a long time, economic research on Africa was not seen as a profitable venture intellectually or professionally-few researchers in top-ranked institutions around the world chose to become experts in the field. This was understandable: the reputation of Africa-centered economic research was not enhanced by the well-known limitations of economic data across the continent. Moreover, development economics itself was not always fashionable, and the broader discipline of economics has had its ups and downs, and has been undergoing a major identity crisis because it failed to predict the Great Recession. Times have changed: many leading researchers-including a few Nobel laureates-have taken the subject of Africa and economics seriously enough to devote their expertise and creativity to it. They have been amply rewarded: the richness, complexities, and subtleties of African societies, civilizations, rationalities, and ways of living, have helped renew the humanities and the social sciences-and economics in particular-to the point that the continent has become the next major intellectual frontier to researchers from around the world. In collecting some of the most authoritative statements about the science of economics and its concepts in the African context, this ^lhandbook (the first of two volumes) opens up the diverse acuity of commentary on exciting topics, and in the process challenges and stimulates the quest for knowledge. Wide-ranging in its scope, themes, language, and approaches, this volume explores, examines, and assesses economic thinking on Africa, and Africa's contribution to the discipline. The editors bring a set of powerful resources to this endeavor, most notably a team of internationally-renowned economists whose diverse viewpoints are complemented by the perspectives of philosophers, political scientists, and anthropologists.
The 25 January 2011 uprising and the unprecedented dissent and discord to which it gave rise shattered the notion of homogeneity that had characterized state representations of Egypt and Egyptians since 1952. It allowed for the eruption of identities along multiple lines, including class, ideology, culture, and religion, long suppressed by state control. Concomitantly a profusion of women's voices arose to further challenge the state-managed feminism that had sought to define and carefully circumscribe women's social and civic roles in Egypt. Women in Revolutionary Egypt takes the uprising as the point of departure for an exploration of how gender in post-Mubarak Egypt came to be rethought, reimagined, and contested. It examines key areas of tension between national and gender identities, including gender empowerment through art and literature, particularly graffiti and poetry, the disciplining of the body, and the politics of history and memory. Shereen Abouelnaga argues that this new cartography of women's struggle has to be read in a context that takes into consideration the micropolitics of everyday life as well as the larger processes that work to separate the personal from the political. She shows how a new generation of women is resisting, both discursively and visually, the notion of a fixed or 'authentic' notion of Egyptian womanhood in spite of prevailing social structures and in face of all gendered politics of imagined nation.
An anthropologist deconstructs the notion of masculinity using twenty years of field research in the Cairo neighborhood of al-Zawiya. Watching the revolution of January 2011, the world saw Egyptians, men and women, come together to fight for freedom and social justice. These events gave renewed urgency to the fraught topic of gender in the Middle East. The role of women in public life, the meaning of manhood, and the future of gender inequalities are hotly debated by religious figures, government officials, activists, scholars, and ordinary citizens throughout Egypt. Live and Die Like a Man presents a unique twist on traditional understandings of gender and gender roles, shifting the attention to men and exploring how they are collectively “produced” as gendered subjects. It traces how masculinity is continuously maintained and reaffirmed by both men and women under changing socio-economic and political conditions. Over a period of nearly twenty years, Farha Ghannam lived and conducted research in al-Zawiya, a low-income neighborhood not far from Tahrir Square in northern Cairo. Detailing her daily encounters and ongoing interviews, she develops life stories that reveal the everyday practices and struggles of the neighborhood over the years. We meet Hiba and her husband as they celebrate the birth of their first son and begin to teach him how to become a man; Samer, a forty-year-old man trying to find a suitable wife; Abu Hosni, who struggled with different illnesses; and other local men and women who share their reactions to the uprising and the changing situation in Egypt. Against this backdrop of individual experiences, Ghannam develops the concept of masculine trajectories to account for the various paths men can take to embody social norms. In showing how men work to realize a “male ideal,” she counters the prevalent dehumanizing stereotypes of Middle Eastern men all too frequently reproduced in media reports, and opens new spaces for rethinking patriarchal structures and their constraining effects on both men and women. Praise for Live and Die Like a Man “In a book that lives up to its name, anthropologist Ghannam explores what it means to be a man . . . . Her thick descriptions, amassed over 20 years of research, will make readers laugh, cry, and gasp at the lives of these individuals . . . . By examining the construct of manhood, Ghannam is charting new territory in Middle Eastern studies. Summing Up: Highly recommended.” —CHOICE “With its focus on masculinity, Farha Ghannam’s thoughtful ethnography, Live and Die Like a Man, makes important interventions into the anthropological scholarship on gender, childhood, and family in the Middle East . . . . Her ethnographic sensibility perfectly grasps the dynamic and complex intertwining of male and female ways of being and self-presentation and how that interrelationship forms men’s lives.” —International Journal of Middle East Studies
