How do norms of gender segregation interact with an expanding surveillance project? Is Siwan men's control over 'their women' a way of preserving an internal domain that outsiders may not access, or do their actions in effect undergird and expand the explicitly masculinist expansion of surveillance? In this talk, I provide an overview of the location of the Siwa oasis at Egypt's territorial and national margins. I then discuss how I am approaching the concept of gendered mobilities; that is, how men and women are differently positioned vis-a-vis state projects and how their differential positions can simultaneously restrict and expand the reach of local authorities into Siwi economies and daily life.