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Securitizing the Urban Geography of Cairene post-Revolutionary Times
Abstract
I choose Bulaq Abule’lla district to put together securitization and gentrification as main analytics to read the transformation that has occurred in the post the political ruptures of 2011. The district has a shadow security network that sometimes follows the police station and at other times follows another key decision-maker. During 2011 revolution times, the geographical location of Bulaq Abul’ella was politically vital as it is adjacent to Tahrir Square where major revolutionary events took place in Cairo. The residents of Bulaq were portrayed by officials as heroes and thugs at different times of the Egyptian revolution during the period from 2011 to 2013. Bulaq Abule’lla, a district in a central location in Cairo, subjected to major urban transformations due to the high land value associated with its location, noting that its western periphery is the river Nile bank. Its residents have been dispossessed by business capital and the government. Bulaq Abule’lla has its so-called formal and informal urban and economic settings. The shadow security network in which exist at Bulaq Abule’lla have been involved in counterrevolutionary activities, as well as revolutionary activities. Additionally, this shadow security network has a role to play in the dispossession processes. In the urban geography of Bulaq Abule’lla, I unpack different modes of violence that are constituted through Baltaga (thuggery) as an infrastructure of violence. In order to unpack the positionality of these personnel, I will unpack the political economy associated with thuggery labor. Through an ethnographic study of 18 months, in this paper, I will unpack two words that constitute that political economy of violence that are Baltaga and Maslaha (Thuggery and Interest). Both words transcended into meanings that are associated with each other. The first is Baltaga, a noun in Arabic that refers to violent and thuggery activities and are about acts of force that are beneficial to its doers and/or to others. The second is, Maslaha, it is a noun in Arabic refers to some social interest whether money or a position. Young men who are accused of being thugs usually come from the urban poor. Networks of Baltaga do associate in Cairo with popular neighborhoods and/or so-called informal settlements, related to the social stigma associated with criminality and poverty. The phenomenon of shadow security networks is majorly, but not exclusively, of masculine young men, that constitute a class that is always in-the-making works as an infrastructure of ruling and violence.
Discipline
Anthropology
Geographic Area
Egypt
Sub Area
Urban Studies