A rich examination of the securitization of the everyday lives of the citizens of Cairo and how to build a more equitable urban order

Until the year 2000, Cairo had been a model megacity, relatively crime free, safe, and public facing. It featured a thriving public culture and vibrant street life. In recent decades, however, the Egyptian state has accelerated a wholesale dismantlement of public education and public sector jobs and reversed the modest land reforms of the Nasser era. As a result, the vast majority of Cairo’s people have been forcibly deprived of their social rights, social goods, and educational capital.

Eschewing the traditional focus on top-down regime and state security, the contributors to this volume, who represent a wide array of academics, activists, artists, and journalists, explore how repressive policies affect the everyday lives of citizens. They show the ways in which urban security crises are politically fashioned and do not emanate from the urban social fabric on their own: city crime, violence, and fear are created by specific means of extraction, production, and control.

Another kind of city can live again. But how? By tackling a range of issues, including public health, transportation, labor safety, and housing and property distribution, Cairo Securitized unsettles simplistic binaries of thug and police, public versus private, and slum versus enclave, and proposes compelling new ways in which securitizing processes can be reversed, reengineered, and replaced with a participatory and equitable urban order.

Contributors:

Sara Soumaya Abed African Leadership Centre, Kings College London

Zeinab Abul-Magd Oberlin College, USA

Mohamed Ahmed Political Scientist and historian, Cairo Egypt

Rania Ahmed Independent Researcher, Cairo Egypt

Nicholas Simcik Arese University of Cambridge, UK

Ahmed Awadalla University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK

Ahmad Borham The American University in Cairo, Cairo Egypt

Miguel A. Fuentes Carreño University of California, Santa Barbara, USA

Roberta Duffield Scholar on urbanism, public space, Cairo Egypt

Momen El-Husseiny The American University in Cairo, Cairo Egypt

Mohamed Elmeshad SOAS, London UK

Ifdal Elsaket Netherlands-Flemish Institute, Cairo Egypt

Mohamed Elshahed Independent Writer and Curator, Mexico City

Amy Fallas University of California Santa Barbara, USA

Tina Guirguis University of California, Santa Barbara, USA

Elena Habersky The American University in Cairo, Cairo Egypt

Hanan Hammad Texas Christian University, USA

Hatem Hassan Impact Justice, Pittsburgh, USA

Amira Hetaba Federal Government of Lower Austria, Austria

Deena Khalil The American University in Cairo, Cairo Egypt

Omnia Khalil City University of New York, USA

Sabrina Lilleby University of Texas, Austin, USA

Paul Miranda Nonviolent Peaceforce, South Mosul, Iraq

Mostafa Mohie American University in Cairo, Cairo Egypt

Laura Monfleur University François-Rabelais, Tours, France

Aya Nassar Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

Nora Noralla human rights researcher, Berlin, Germany

Aly El Reggal Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence Italy

Afsaneh Rigot Harvard University, Cambridge USA

Yahia Saleh Malmö University, Sweden

Bassem al-Samragy political analyst at the International Criminal Court, The Hague, The Netherlands

Yahia Shawkat Technische Universität Berlin, Germany

Maïa Sinno Géographie Cités Lab, CNRS / Sorbonne University, Paris France

Mark Westmoreland Leiden University, The Netherlands