Distribution Agreement In presenting this thesis or dissertation as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree from Emory University, I hereby grant to Emory University and its agents the non-exclusive license to archive, make accessible, and display my thesis or dissertation in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known, including display on the world wide web. I understand that I may select some access restrictions as part of the online submission of this thesis or dissertation. I retain all ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation. Signature: _____________________________ _________________ Maurita N. Poole November 15, 2011 Approval Sheet “Brown Skin Is Half of Beauty”: Representations of Beauty and the Construction of Race in Contemporary Cairo By Maurita N. Poole Doctor of Philosophy Department of Anthropology _________________________________________ [Advisor’s signature] David Nugent, PhD Advisor _________________________________________ [Member’s signature] Peter Brown, PhD Committee Member _________________________________________ [Member’s signature] Sidney Kasfir, PhD Committee Member _________________________________________ [Member’s signature] Devin Stewart, PhD Committee Member Accepted: _________________________________________ Lisa A. Tedesco, Ph.D. Dean of the Graduate School ___________________ Date Abstract Cover Page “Brown Skin Is Half of Beauty”: Representations of Beauty and the Construction of Race in Contemporary Cairo By Maurita N. Poole M.A., Emory University, 2006 M.P.H., Emory University, 2005 B.S., Georgetown University, 1998 Advisor: David Nugent, PhD An abstract of A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology 2011 Abstract “Brown Skin Is Half of Beauty”: Representations of Beauty and the Construction of Race in Contemporary Cairo By Maurita N. Poole Twenty-first century Egypt is a postcolonial Islamic nation-state where the notion of race is not recognized or explicitly discussed in everyday life. Egyptians from various ethnic and religious groups, and of different hues, confidently assert that race as both a biological and cultural construct is not a meaningful category of differentiation within their society. The significance of the concept of race, from their perspective, is a Western social problem. Nonetheless, racially intoned representations of darker-skinned people and stereotypical signifiers of Africa exist alongside the valorization of whiteness as an idealized physical attribute and sociopolitical category of identity in Cairo. In a cultural context such as the Egyptian one, where the local population neither acknowledges nor utilizes the term “race” as a legitimate labeling device, how can we evaluate seemingly racialized discourses and visual representations? This question serves as the basis of my dissertation research, which focuses on the ways that Egyptian folk categorizations of race and skin color are expressed and articulated in their discourses about physical beauty. This study is based on thirteen months of fieldwork I carried out in Cairo between 2001 and 2006. In my research, I examine Egyptian descriptions, perceptions, and visual representations of beauty as a way to provide insight into how racial and gendered differences are constructed. The central premise of this work is that discourses of beauty in contemporary Cairo are racialized. These discourses not only signify desirable physical attributes, but also operate to mark inclusion and exclusion between different groups in Cairo’s urban society. I focus on the meaning of Egyptians’ desire to create distance between themselves and blackness as well as their rationale for valorizing specific forms of whiteness. In addition, I discuss competing cultural models of beauty among Egyptians (embodied in the phrase “Brown Skin is Half the Beauty”) that praises the beauty of brown-skinned women as part of a larger aesthetic ideal that draws upon Islamic and Christian ideologies that emphasize the importance of physical features and the cultivation of an ethical disposition. Cover Page “Brown Skin Is Half of Beauty”: Representations of Beauty and the Construction of Race in Contemporary Cairo By Maurita N. Poole M.A., Emory University, 2006 M.P.H., Emory University, 2005 B.S., Georgetown University, 1998 Advisor: David Nugent, PhD A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology 2011 Acknowledgements Anyone who has known me during my tenure as a graduate student at Emory University knows that I could not have reached this point without the support of a community that has worked very hard to help me to accomplish the herculean task of earning my doctorate. I came to Emory green, without the benefit of even one course in the field of anthropology. Yet, the Department of Anthropology at Emory accepted me into the program and afforded me the chance to explore a subject dear to my heart – the construction of race and skin color in twenty-first century Egypt and the Arab-Islamic world. And while I still regard myself as a developing scholar, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the intellectual growth that I have experienced as a result of the efforts of the faculty in the Anthropology Department and the Emory University community. I would especially like to thank my advisor, David Nugent, and committee members, Devin Stewart, Sidney Kasfir, and Peter Brown. My research was generously funded by the following institutions: the Center for Arabic Studies Abroad, the Institute of African Studies Institute at Emory University, the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Office of University & Community Partnerships, the Center for Health, Culture & Society, the American Research Center in Egypt, and the Andrew Mellon Foundation. During the last two years, essential financial resources and social support that I needed for dissertation completion has come from Emory University’s Laney Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and my work at the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Spelman College, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Walters Art Museum. Therefore, I would like to express my warmest appreciation and gratitude to Lisa Tedesco, Virginia Shadron, Andrea Barnwell-Brownlee, Anne Collins-Smith, Daryl White, John Franklin, Konrad Ng, Deborah Macanic, Laurie Trippett, Joaneath Spicer, John Shields, Rosemary Hynes, Kharen Fulton, Queen Watson, Theresa Cox-Kenney, Leah Carswell, Maria Tuck, Sherice Allen-Henry, and Geri Thomas. From the very beginning, faculty at Emory and elsewhere, as well as librarians, supported my attempts to find the social scientific literature that is essential to my scholarly pursuit. Although I will not be able to list them all, I believe it is important to name as many individuals as I can who have helped me along the way: Anne Jennings, Jean de Silva, Eve Troutt Powell, Heather Sharkey, Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, Kharyssa Rhodes, Johnnetta Cole, Tracy Rone, Hudita Mustafa, George Armelagos, Michael Peletz, Patricia Whitten, Bruce Knauft, Peggy Barlett, Bradd Shore, Kathryn Yount, Regina Werum, Michael Elliott, Kimberly Wallace-Sanders, Dianne Stewart, Daryl White, Alma Jean Billingslea-Brown, Beatriz Morales, Richard See, Pem Buck, Irma McClaurin, A. Lynne Bolles, Karen Brodkin, Cynthia Neale Spence, Elizabeth Cooper, Randall Burkett, Lloyd Busch, and Leah Christine Terrell. A special thanks goes to my friends, fellow graduate students, and family who encouraged me to “stay the course” when my efforts seemed futile. For sustaining and nurturing me like my blood relatives, I express my deepest gratitude to Guirdex Masse, LaTrina Jackson, Kimberly Jackson, and Jean De Silva. For forever helping me to place the PhD program in perspective, I thank my Emory sisters Leandris Liburd, Riche Daniel-Barnes, Andrea Abrams, Margaret Farrow, Candy Tate, Anne Marie Mingo, and Kimberly Oliver. For reminding me to stay positive while I continued to work, I thank Ayaba Logan, Haipeng Zhou, Michael Campbell, Heather Ford, Grace Okrah, Ean Huggins-McLean, Paul Sang, Charles Constantin, Katrina Calhoun, Saida and Cliff Lewis, Paula Jayne, and Khareem Mitchell. For further social support, I express appreciation for Faidra Papavasilou, Suad Abdul Al Khabeer, Emily Parker, and Dominick Rolle. Finally, for making special concessions so that I could get my work done in the library, I thank Chinajoe Jones, Jeffrey Buckson, Zavian Weems, Michael Leonard, Carl Jeter, and Dennis House. Last but not least, I would like express my appreciation for my godmother Eva Parker, the McDaniels, and the Pooles for their enduring love and support. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures Preface 1 Introduction: Brown Skin Is Half the Beauty 8 Chapter One: Contemporary Cairo 27 Chapter Two: Race and the Aesthetic Body 47 Chapter Three: Constructing Race and Color in Contemporary Cairo 80 Chapter Four: Representations of Ideal Womanhood in Egyptian National Thought and Popular Media 121 Chapter Five: Aesthetic Ideals in Contemporary Cairo 160 Chapter Six: Regional Difference and Global Engagement