The Politics of the Poor in Egypt – Analytical Reflections and Empirical Findings

HISDEMAB seminar with Cilja Harders

In my talk, I present findings and observations grounded in almost 20 years of qualitative research engagement in Egypt and with marginalized communities in Cairo. I sketch the diverse „politics of the poor“ in the framework of authoritarian social contracts, looking into formal and informal ways of participation. I will speak about the role of the urban poor in the uprisings of 2011 building on S. Ismail and my own work. I argue that poor people use manifold ways of engaging the state and its institutions, carving out new spaces between resistance and accommodation.

Cilja Harders is Professor at Freie Universität Berlin, where she heads the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Politics. Among her publications: “The Politics of the Poor in the Middle East and North Africa. Between Contestation and Accommodation” (in Roel Meijer, Zahra Babar, James Sater (ed.) 2020: Routledge Handbook on Citizenship in the Middle East and North Africa, Routledge, 2020); Staatsanalyse von unten: urbane Armut und politische Partizipation in Ägypten, Hamburg, 2002.

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