Different Social Imaginaries of the Future of the Zabbaleen Recycling School for Boys
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American University in Cairo AUC Knowledge Fountain Theses and Dissertations 2-1-2014 The modern school in the garbage settlement: different social imaginaries of the future of the Zabbaleen recycling school for boys Marwa Adel Abed El Fattah Follow this and additional works at: https://fount.aucegypt.edu/etds Recommended Citation APA Citation Abed El Fattah, M. (2014).The modern school in the garbage settlement: different social imaginaries of the future of the Zabbaleen recycling school for boys [Master’s thesis, the American University in Cairo]. AUC Knowledge Fountain. https://fount.aucegypt.edu/etds/1134 MLA Citation Abed El Fattah, Marwa Adel. The modern school in the garbage settlement: different social imaginaries of the future of the Zabbaleen recycling school for boys. 2014. American University in Cairo, Master's thesis. AUC Knowledge Fountain. https://fount.aucegypt.edu/etds/1134 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by AUC Knowledge Fountain. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of AUC Knowledge Fountain. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The American University in Cairo School of Humanities and Social Sciences THE MODERN SCHOOL IN THE GARBAGE SETTLEMENT: DIFFERENT SOCIAL IMAGINARIES OF THE FUTURE OF THE ZABBALEEN RECYCLING SCHOOL FOR BOYS 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 Marwa Abdel Fattah Under the supervision of Dr. Sylvain Perdigon October/ 2013 To Farida and Adel For their unconditional love and understanding ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my thanks to Dr. Sylvain Perdigon for agreeing to supervise me despite his departure to AUB last December. I owe Dr. Perdigon a debt of gratitude for his responsiveness to and detailed comments on practically every line I sent him. Working with Dr. Perdigon has greatly enriched my learning experience and expanded my knowledge of contemporary anthropology and ethnography beyond measure. I also thank Dr. Perdigon for believing that what I was doing was worthwhile. My thanks also go to my first thesis reader, Dr. Reem Saad, for recommending Dr. Perdigon and Dr. Marlene Anawati to be on my thesis committee, for which I am truly grateful. I want to thank Dr. Saad for her critical and straightforward comments that enabled me to question my assumptions, keep on track, and even manage my schedule more efficiently. Special thanks to my third reader, Dr. Marlene Anawati, for agreeing to work with me on such short notice towards the second stage of my thesis project. I want to thank her also for her constant support and responsiveness. Special thanks are also due to Dr. Helen Rizzo for her patience in responding to my numerous emails and questions about deadlines and professors’ contacts. Her support was instrumental to the development of my project. A very big thanks to Dr. Malak Zaalouk, an outstanding educator who inspired me to take my interest in children’s education a step further and apply to graduate schools in the U.S. and the UK. Along with Dr. Zaalouk, I want to thank Dr. Perdigon, Dr. John Schaefer, Dr. Mohamed Tabishat and Dr. Maisoun El Succarie for assisting me with my graduate school applications. It is thanks to their unerring guidance that I was admitted in the Stanford Graduate School of Education. I am also indebted to Dr. Nazek Nossier, with whom I had the pleasure of working as a Teaching Assistant. My editor, Mona Hamdy, deserves a word of thanks for coming aboard on short notice to assist with the writing process. Thanks to Dalia Adel, Lilian Boutros, and Mariam Amin for their support in all the administrative matters. I am also grateful to the Namaa Summer School for Sustainable Development for first introducing me to the Mukattam Garbage Village, an experience that inspired me to think critically about the field of development. A very special thanks to Rabab Mahmoud for being many things in my life: an amazing sister, a true friend, a fun roommate, a stimulating conversationalist, and, most of all, a thoughtful person who made me more aware of many precious things in life. Thanks also go to Sally Adel, whose intelligence, talent, and quirky sense of humor have seen me through this undertaking. A special thanks to (in alphabetical order): Ayten Elbanna, Ingy ElRakshy, Jina Moustafa, Maha Mouhieldin and Sara Gomaa my childhood friends whose warmth and compassion hold a special place in my heart. A thanks to Derek Ludvici for being an awesome friend and colleague: Shanaya Frazier for her invaluable academic advice: Noha Khattab for being an amazing colleague: Ezzat and Mina for inspiring me to write this thesis. Table of Contents The Modern School in the Garbage Settlement: different social imaginaries of the future of the zabbaleen Recycling School for boys ............................................................................. 1 Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... 3 Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 7 Background ..................................................................................................................................................... 16 The Modernizing Zabbaleen: Being Subject to a Process of Social Reification ...................... 20 He and She: the Dynamics of Gender Relations within the Zabbaleen and the RS ................ 22 Age: “the younger boys, the older boys and the graduates” ........................................................... 23 Theoretical Framework: .............................................................................................................................. 24 Forms of Capital: Transitioning from one form of Cultural Capital to another one ............... 24 The logics of stigma: Erving Goffman's theory of social stigma ................................................... 26 Methodology ................................................................................................................................................... 27 Chapter Outline: ............................................................................................................................................. 31 Chapter I: ..................................................................................................................................... 34 “The Wake Up Call”: Becoming Modernized (or Modernization and cultural capital) ........ 34 A- Modernization as cultural capital .................................................................................................. 35 The Shangai Paper: Iskandar’s Modern Imaginary of the RS ........................................................ 36 B- The Social Distribution of happiness and death ............................................................................ 38 Survival in the RS students’ case: “Earn and Learn” Approach ................................................... 43 The Zabbaleen choice as privatized risk: .............................................................................................. 46 Chapter II: .................................................................................................................................... 50 Intimacy with trash: stories of pain and violence ............................................................................... 50 Introduction: Ramy the teacher, the artist , and the garbage collector ........................................ 50 The “sacred nation” and small numbers: the Zabbaleen as a Coptic minority ........................ 52 I- The logics of stigma: The RS boys interpretation of their social identity as garbage collectors: ......................................................................................................................................................... 57 What is it to be intimate with trash? ....................................................................................................... 59 Intimacy with trash and “formulas for handling normals” .............................................................. 60 Group Alignment and Ego Identity ....................................................................................................... 63 Hard work as a formula to handle stigma: ............................................................................................ 64 The cross on the hand: symbolic visibility of the stigma and the stigmatized defensive reactions ............................................................................................................................................................................. 66 Chapter III: .................................................................................................................................. 71 The sensory order of the Zabbaleen and the sensory level of the waste stigma ....................... 71 I- What is being carved into human flesh is an image of society: The anthropology of the senses and the sensory stigma ................................................................................................................................. 72 Olfactory boundaries: ..................................................................................................................................