Revolutions' aftermaths are often disillusioned tomorrows. Whether the transformation of the "revolutionary situation" into a "revolutionary outcome" (Tilly, 1977) proves effective or not, post-uprising moments can be defined as moments where processes of pluralistic political effervescence - in which social actors share a "collective belief in the game", i.e., a temporary illusio (Bourdieu, 1995) caused by the disturbance of routines - become foreclosed. The foreclosure can happen in many ways. Rallies may continue. But with nothing getting done. Their impact weakens, the belief that they can change something disappears, and the temporary illusio dissipates. It is difficult to grasp precisely when this "past-the-deadline" mechanism occurs, but this is what the term "foreclosure" refers to. It is not meant to introduce a clean break between before and after, but rather to draw attention to the complex temporalities of such moments.
The foreclosure of the temporary illusio marks the dimming of the actors' confidence that possibilities of action exist, even when, in many cases, the situation remains objectively fluid and the potentialities of action are still vivid. This is the distinctive feature of disenchanting tomorrows: the paradoxical coexistence of a sense of fatality and a persistence of potentialities. A second series of uncertainties relates to the destabilization of routines and rules that frame actors' logics of action: while, after effervescence, the situation seems to "return to order", new rules are set, both formal and informal, and new orders are established that allow actors to try certain moves, or bar them from doing so. Those in power may sometimes be the same ones, but they are not playing the same game.
This panel takes post-2013 Egypt as a case study to explore this complex question of how different actors survive revolution. Firstly, how do people cope with disillusionment, whatever their expectations had been in terms of political, social or economic changes? And, secondly, how do they reposition themselves in the new order being established, that is, how do they keep their - or gain new - political, professional, familial, or social positions when cards have been reshuffled during the process of effervescence?
The panel will gather scholars in sociology, anthropology and political science, who study different "segments" of society (political elites, revolutionary activists, cultural circles, families) and who share a common interest for empirical fieldwork relying on qualitative methods. It will contribute to the understanding of revolutionnary failure and of the ambivalent aspirations which it creates (Scott, 2014).
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Ms. Marie Vannetzel
This paper attempts to make sense of the unfulfilled aspirations of a family living in a peripheral region of Egypt. It builds on a long-term ethnographic research in immersion inside this family and draws on the dialogical ethnography method inspired by Samuli Schielke’s seminal work on everyday life experiences of male youth in rural Egypt. As Schielke has shown (2008), boredom was a key experience in youth lives, which did not derive from monotony itself, but from the “capacity to aim for more and to become aware that there is an alternative to the monotony”. The 2011 Revolution triggered many “aims for more” for most Egyptians. The 2013 military coup was a much more ambivalent event in this regard: the “stormy season” closed alternative paths while also nurturing powerful promises of stability and decent life (Schielke, 2017). Then, with the storm dissipating, a slow erosion of opportunities for better positions now constrain people’s hope in achieving their “aims for more” – although those are still vivid longings. This erosion is exemplified, in particular, by the inflation of prices generated by a new set of economic policies.
How have the three sequences of “revolution-storm-dissipation” reconfigured the expectations in life of ordinary people? Have the “aims for more” intensified and rendered boredom even stronger? How have the macrolevel political and socio-economic changes impacted the living and imaginative conditions of ordinary families?
There is ground for saying that each Egyptian family presents singular features and asperities that make it uncommon in some way. So does the family that I investigate here. But it fits with the “ordinary” sociological pattern of a certain stratum of middle classes in Egypt: now owners of a small grocery, the father used to be a school teacher and the mother a housewife raising their six children. They have a past migration experience in the Gulf that made it possible for them to buy a land and build the family house. Small-size familial enterprise, governmental job and migration are key aspects of a normal decent life in Egypt. However, as I will show, the storm and the erosion have threatened their decent lives in many ways. While parents worry about their grown-up children’s destinies, the latter face growing difficulties getting married and working, struggle not to fall, but also consume anxiolytics and express despair, just as the youngest son writing on his Facebook wall: “Expectation kills. Please do not expect.”
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Miss. Sixtine Deroure
The Egyptian revolution saw a resurgence of the phenomenon of martyrdom, which led in particular to the creation in December 2011 of the National Council of Care for the Martyrs’ Families and Injured (NCMI). Martyr figures convey values and reveal identities (Middleton, 2014). They are generally ambivalent as they can be seen as heroes or as traitors (Sei, 2017), and divergences over the qualification of martyr then mark lines of political and identity divisions. The martyrs of the revolution, although they were claimed by different political entities competing at the time, were mainly a citizen production (Buckner, Khatib, 2014), and celebrated with a view to challenging the authority of the State and the regime in power - whatever it may be. The July 2013 military coup put an end to the expression of this political polarization, and the counter-revolutionary regime currently in power oscillates between an invisibilization of revolutionary narratives and a recovery of symbols embodying a national dimension (Bildt, 2015).
Still active today, the NCMI reveals this ambivalence. It takes care of the families of the State’s new martyrs, which are mainly soldiers, police officers and Copts killed in the "war on terrorism ». But it also supports families of revolutionary martyrs. The NCMI attempts to control and frame the martyr-making process, creating official categories of martyrs and rights for their families. In this paper, I will tackle this ambivalence by questioning the social and political effects of the NCMI’s martyr-making process on families.
Firstly, what are the consequences of this institution’s support on the material living conditions of families and thus how does their official qualification as “families of martyrs” influence or transform their personal and professional relationships? Secondly, how does this official recognition change the way in which these families survive the loss of their “martyrs” ? How does this loss transform their expectations - political, economic and social – and their perceptions of life possibilities? Thirdly, what are by contrast the material and moral repercussions of the non-recognition of this status among certain families of revolutionary martyrs? This communication is based on an on-going fieldwork conducted in Cairo, and consisting in observations and interviews with NCMI’s actors and martyrs’ families.
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Marine Poirier
How does the former regime’s political elite survive the revolution and the unfolding transformations of the political scene since 2013? In 2011, the dissolution of the National Democratic Party (NDP) profoundly disrupted the Egyptian political configuration. Since then, no party has replaced the former ruling party, and only loose coalitions have been formed around President El Sissi. The absence of a structured government party results in a high degree of friction and produces a strong sense of uncertainty among both “old” and “new” political actors. As for former NDP leaders, many regret the absence of a party in which they could find a favorable framework to resume their political transactions. The dissolution of the ruling party deprived them of their status and privileged access to public resources, reducing their ability to remain “in the game”.
In this context, how do former NDP leaders continue to maintain their political and social positions when the party structure on which they built their careers disappeared? More precisely, how do they deal with the sometimes-embarrassing legacy of the former ruling party, in a regime that continuously asserts a clean break from the old regime and when many NDP figures are currently on trial? To what extent are former party leaders and representatives able to reinvent themselves as political actors, and to claim their own legacies and trajectories?
Based on an ongoing research conducted in Cairo, I propose to study how former leaders fight processes of political and social downgrading and relegation post 2013. Based on a prosopography combining literature, press archives, politicians' memoirs and biographical interviews with former NDP leaders, I explore how the latter both maintain a confused nostalgia for the old regime (and the routines and stabilized frameworks of political action within the party) and relate to the promotion of "new politics” by the Sissi regime. More broadly, I analyze the concrete transformations of their political activities, in a context where the value of their political, social and economic resources has profoundly been affected. By studying their strategies of self-legitimization and reinvention, this research grasps together the ruptures and continuities within the ruling political elite, demonstrating how this group is composite, heterogeneous and dynamic, and characterized by “often imperceptible mobilities".
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Dr. Giedrė Šabasevičiūtė
Egyptian uprising was defined not only by political effervescence but also by a significant increase in cultural activism. Many aspiring writers and poets saw the revolution as the occasion to redefine the space of literary creation according to the new political frontlines. They took steps in organizing themselves more efficiently outside the purview of crumbling State institutions of culture by setting up literary associations and engaging in informal cultural activities. Political considerations were always present. Experiences of revolutionary commitment, albeit often temporary ones, created political affinities which inevitably translated into literary friendships and sociable cultural exchange structured around the institution of a literary club (nadwa). Yet, evolving revolutionary landscape constantly challenged political affinities prompting writers to develop various strategies to preserve literary friendships.
This paper focuses on a literary association created in 2012 by a Muslim Brotherhood’s sympathizer as a non-partisan literary circle. Built on the ethnographic immersion in its organized symposiums and interviews with its old and new members conducted between 2016 and 2019, this paper explores the conditions in which political sensibilities overlay or chafe against other social values and forms of being together, such as social class, respectability, literary capital and, above all, factors of aesthetic affinities and literary expertise. Defined by different social norms and forms of interaction than political activism, such as sociable exchange, courtesy and aesthetic enjoyment, the context of a literary club provides a productive angle to observe the revolutionary closure among non-activist middle-aged Egyptians with literary aspirations. How do members speak about their past political commitments? How do they react to political positions expressed in literary texts that are discussed in a nadwa? By exploring strategies of smoothing out political edges in the context of a literary club, this paper questions the role of politics in creating social bonds during revolutionary upheavals.
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Dr. Youssef El Chazli
After an initial peak of interest in participants in contentious politics, the literature on Egyptian politics has reverted to traditional analytical frames, focusing on elections, Islamism, authoritarianism, and so on. And while some authors have focused usefully on the dynamics of contention, little if any research has systematically evaluated the consequences of the event on individuals. But what happened to the people who participated in the 2011 uprising in Egypt, in the decade following the fall of Mubarak? What were the consequences of their participation in the revolutionary episode that shook the country after decades of “political stability”? How did they cope with the closing of the political space after the military’s seizure of power in 2013? While the early years of the Revolution empowered many people to participate in politics and hold high expectations and hopes about the future, the authoritarian turn has had important consequences on how Egyptians, especially the country’s youth, feel about what can be done. While many expected “better tomorrows” from the revolutionary situation, individual salvation (through work, family, religion, migration) and collective demobilization are now the most common solutions for many people. In other cases, when individuals have kept their commitment alive, it has taken many forms, ranging from entry into violence to reconversion in less contentious modes of collective action (NGOs, cultural activism, etc.). What explains this variation? By following the same individuals over many years, it becomes possible to restore the different steps of an “activist career”, giving space in the analysis for both the weight of past experiences conditioning future ones and the weight of situational logics. I contend that looking at the individual level in that way can help observe a series of mechanisms that are usually posited without being demonstrated.
