El Hawary, 1 The American University in Cairo School of Humanities and Social Sciences The Graffiti of Mohamed Mahmoud and the Politics of Transition in Egypt: The Transformation of Space, Sociality and Identities A Thesis Submitted to The Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology and Egyptology In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts In Sociology-Anthropology By Nouran Al-Anwar El-Hawary Under the supervision of Dr. Mark Westmoreland September/2014 El Hawary, 2 “The autonomy of the reader depend on a transformation of the social relationships that overdetermine his relation to texts. This transformation is a necessary task. This revolution would be no more than another totalitarianism on the part of an elite claiming for itself the right to conceal different modes of conduct, and substituting a new normative education for the previous one, were it not that we can count on the fact that already exist, though it surreptitious or even repressed, an experience other than of passivity. A politics of reading must be articulated on an analysis that, describing practices that have long been in effect, makes them politicizable” (de Certeau 1984; 174) El Hawary, 3 Acknowledgement The writing and the completion of this thesis would not be possible without the help and support of a number of people. First of all, I am deeply indebted to my supervisor, Professor Mark Westmoreland, for his unwavering support and guidance. Mark provided crucial direction during early stages and has continued to offer generous support and insightful comments throughout. I could not have wished for a better supervisor and consider myself very fortunate for having had the opportunity to benefit from his expertise. I am immensely grateful to Martina Ricker who has been my reader, during the major part of writing this thesis. Her constant encouragement as well as her frequent, thorough feedback and perspective have been crucial to the finalization of this thesis. I also want to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Mohamed Tabishat, Dr. John Shafer and Dr. Mona Abaza for their support and insightful comments and suggestions when this project was in its primitive inception phase. On a personal note, I owe a great deal to my family and numerous friends who have offered support and encouragement during this work process. I would like to thank my family; I am especially grateful to my father, Anwar El-Hawary for encouraging me to enroll in this Master’s program and my mother, Asmaa El-Hussieny who has been a great source of inspiration and support throughout this project. A very special thanks goes to my husband and life partner, Khaled Faried. I have benefited greatly from his encouragement, good advice and intellectually inaugurating company and found motivation in our interesting discussions. Finally, I would like to thank my rebellious cousin Amgad El-Sabbagh for accompanying me in the pre- field and field visits as well as for offering invaluable comments and advice My gratitude goes to the graduate program at SAPE department that has supported us. In this regard, I would like to thank Dr. Helen Rizzo for her invaluable effort in advancing the graduate program. El Hawary, 4 Abstract This study is concerned with the spatial transformations taking place in Mohamed Mahmoud that branches from Midan el-Tahrir; the official site of the Egyptian January 25 Revolution. Since the revolution, this street has witnessed a great deal of violence during several bloody clashes between protesters and security forces. It has also become famous for the dissenting graffiti murals wrapping the walls of it entrance. By conducting ethnography of this block of Mohamed Mahmoud Street, my study focuses on the residents and shop owners in the area, who I frame as the graffiti's ‘unintended audience,’ to understand how these spatial and political transformations have affected this space, the residents’ experience, social relations and sense of belonging. I argue that these new spatial transformations brought by the revolution have introduced an alternative public space, inviting a peculiar array of incidents and distinctive social interactions in which people deploy the mode of speaking in their subversion of many ambivalences in the course of troubled political transition. El Hawary, 5 Table of Contents Chapter One: Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 7 Introduction: .............................................................................................................................................. 7 Research Questions: .................................................................................................................................. 9 Background: ............................................................................................................................................ 10 The Site of Mohamed Mahmoud: ........................................................................................................... 13 Hitting the Field: ..................................................................................................................................... 17 Methodology and Sources: ..................................................................................................................... 19 Researcher in the Field: .......................................................................................................................... 22 Contribution: ........................................................................................................................................... 25 Thesis Overview: .................................................................................................................................... 25 Chapter Two: Graffiti as Public Space ...................................................................................................... 27 Introduction: ............................................................................................................................................ 27 Conceptual Framework: .......................................................................................................................... 29 Graffiti as a Form of Resistance, Power and Identity: ............................................................................ 32 Cairo: The Modern, the Global and the Contested City: ........................................................................ 36 Space, Transition and Becoming: ........................................................................................................... 42 Conclusion: ............................................................................................................................................. 46 Chapter Three: The Spatial Transformations of Mohamed Mahmoud .................................................... 47 Introduction: ............................................................................................................................................ 47 Mohamed Mahmoud: the Site of Graffiti and Revolution ...................................................................... 47 The Changed Quality of Visitors: ........................................................................................................... 49 “Who are Egypt’s Thugs?” ..................................................................................................................... 53 Conclusion: ............................................................................................................................................. 58 Chapter Four; Emergent Subjectivities and Mohamed Mahmoud Space as a Lived Experience ............ 59 Introduction: ............................................................................................................................................ 59 25 January Revolution; the Revolutionaries and the Others: .................................................................. 60 Negligence and Lack of Security: ........................................................................................................... 68 Fear, Worries and a State of Preparedness: ............................................................................................. 78 Economic Ruination (ua’af il-haal): ....................................................................................................... 79 The Violation of a Street’s Sanctity: ....................................................................................................... 81 El Hawary, 6 Nostalgia: ................................................................................................................................................ 84 Conclusion: ............................................................................................................................................. 86 Chapter Five: The Transformed Social Space of Mohamed Mahmoud; the Sense of Belonging among the Unintended Audience of graffiti ........................................................................................................... 88 Introduction: ............................................................................................................................................ 88 Social Impotence, Suspicion and Anticipation: ...................................................................................... 92 Espionage and Vulnerability