American University in Cairo AUC Knowledge Fountain Theses and Dissertations 2-1-2019 Rooftop recipes for relating: Ecologies of humans, animals, and life Noha Fikry Follow this and additional works at: https://fount.aucegypt.edu/etds Recommended Citation APA Citation Fikry, N. (2019).Rooftop recipes for relating: Ecologies of humans, animals, and life [Master’s thesis, the American University in Cairo]. AUC Knowledge Fountain. https://fount.aucegypt.edu/etds/523 MLA Citation Fikry, Noha. Rooftop recipes for relating: Ecologies of humans, animals, and life. 2019. American University in Cairo, Master's thesis. AUC Knowledge Fountain. https://fount.aucegypt.edu/etds/523 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]. 1 The American University in Cairo School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HUSS) Rooftop Recipes for Relating: Ecologies of Humans, Animals, and Life A Thesis Submitted to The Department of Sociology, Egyptology, Anthropology In partial fulfillment of the requirements for The degree of Master of Arts in Sociology-Anthropology By Noha Ezz El-Din Fikry Ismail Under the supervision of Dr. Munira Khayyat July 2018 2 To Mama, Gedo, and their irreplaceable genealogy. To Baba, for his investment in me, his support, and his discipline flowing through my veins. Please, give footnotes a chance. “He is not…simply a modest data-collecting ‘observer’. Essentially he is engaged in saving his own soul, by a curious and ambitious act of intellectual catharsis” -Susan Sontag on Claude Lévi-Strauss (quoted in Bell, 2009, p.52-53) 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ....................................................................................................... 5 I. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 18 WHERE DO (INTELLECTUAL) BABIES COME FROM? A CONCEPTUAL NOTE .................... 21 THE MORE-THAN-HUMAN INVESTIGATOR, ITS ETHNOGRAPHER, AND THE ECOLOGIST: A LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................................................... 24 The Animal Turn ............................................................................................................... 25 INITIAL RESPONSE FROM FIELDWORK: AN ANIMAL? ....................................................... 34 Ecological Anthropology .................................................................................................. 36 INTERLUDE: ANTHROPOLOGICAL CONFESSIONS: HOW TO BE A FRIENDLY STRANGER/STRANGE ANTHROPOLOGIST, OR SOME POSITIONALITY-CONTINUITY ......... 43 II. SET, SCENE, ETHNOGRAPHY: TO AND ON ROOFTOPS .................................. 45 GUEST AND DAUGHTER REVISITED: THE ETHNOGRAPHER AND HER MAMA ................... 47 SCENE I, FAMILY I: WAFAA’S ROOFTOP ............................................................................ 49 SCENE II, FAMILY II: SAFAA’S ROOFTOP ........................................................................... 55 SCENE III, FAMILY III: NAHED’S ROOFTOP ...................................................................... 62 SCENE IV, FAMILY IV: ZAHRA’S ROOFTOP ....................................................................... 69 SCENE V, FAMILY V: THE “ELEPHANT” IN THE “ROOM” ................................................. 74 III. SPACES OF LIFE, STATES OF DEATH ............................................................... 80 WITNESSING, GRIEVING, AND RELATING ........................................................................... 83 THE RIGHT TO DEATH: ON TURKEYS, SHEEP, AND HEROIN (AB)USE .............................. 86 TAKING LIFE, GIVING LIFE: RITUALS OF DECOMPOSITION – SLAUGHTER AND SACRIFICE .............................................................................................................................................. 94 The Chicken and the Child ............................................................................................... 94 To Hold or Not Hold the Knife ......................................................................................... 97 Post-Knife Rationalizations: Sacrifice ........................................................................... 101 LIV(ING), L(Y)ING, D(YING): CONCLUSION ...................................................................... 105 INTERLUDE: GASTRONOMIC COMPOSTS: SHITTING, MACARUNA BÉCHAMEL, & FIRAKH PANNE ................................................................................................................................. 108 IV. PULSATING COLLABORATIONS TO/OF RESILIENCE: COMPOSITIONS OF BELLIES, ATTACHMENTS, AND SELVES............................................................ 111 “CHERCHEZ LA VACHE”, OR INTERSPECIES INGREDIENTS ITINERARY: LOVE, NURTURANCE, AND A PINCH OF ASPIRIN .......................................................................... 114 DISCIPLINE AND PUNISH – MULTISPECIES EDITION ........................................................ 123 THE DEVOURING ANTHROPOLOGIST: EATING MY INTERLOCUTORS.............................. 127 OF PIGEONS AND MEN: GENDER IN/OF RELATING, MORE-THAN-HUMAN IN THE MAKING ............................................................................................................................................ 137 BELLIES, DREAMS, INTESTINES: CONCLUSION ................................................................ 148 V. HOMECOLOGIES: ENTANGLEMENTS OF CITY-MAKING AND WORLD- MAKING .............................................................................................................................. 150 SUNNYSIDE, FALLING FALL, AND THRIVING WINTER: A WORLDING TEMPORALITY MANIFESTO ........................................................................................................................ 152 4 WORDS MAKE WORLDS: KHYR, SATR, RIZQ..................................................................... 157 AS OLD AS GRANDPA: THE TREE-HOME’S LIFE HISTORY .............................................. 164 SMELLY FISH, COSTLY DOWRIES: ECOLOGIES OF EXCHANGE ....................................... 167 WINDOWS AND CURTAINS: PULLING OUT/THROUGH...................................................... 171 VI. CONCLUSION: THE ONLY WAY OUT IS THROUGH, NOW WHAT? ....... 174 WHO LET “THE STATE” OUT? TWO FLUS AND A STATE ................................................. 177 POST-RELATION MEDITATIONS: WHAT AFTER CONNECTION? ...................................... 186 OTHER TRANSLATIONS, OTHER CONVERSATIONS: STORIES, FICTIONS, WORLDING WORDS ............................................................................................................................... 189 STYLISH SURVIVAL STRATEGIES: A MANUAL.................................................................. 195 POSTSCRIPT: WHAT TWENTIES? WHY ROOFTOPS? A GUIDE TO LIFE & RU(M)INATION ............................................................................................................................................ 201 REFERENCES ..................................................................................................................... 204 APPENDIX: GEOGRAPHICAL AND KINSHIP TREES ............................................. 217 5 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This thesis might (and only might) appear as a composed body carried in unison, somehow implying an equally composed body of flesh (namely its author) who brought it to being. In reality, however, this thesis was written in patches and shreds, with a backstage “kitchen” of threads and inconsistent rushes and surges of blood and adrenaline. It was brought to being sideways, backwards, and only rarely forwards. The chapters were not written in the same order you are about to experience, and have likewise witnessed several faces, shades, and shapes of the author. Recipes for Relating include those recipes of relating to writing in general and to this thesis in particular, and I write this and hereby claim with full awareness and decided agency to confidently and maternally let go of this work as it grows to a wider audience across an unknown stretching temporality, hope that it gives the readers lightness, comfort, and faith in times of tragedy, uncertainty, and utter confusion. The first of these recipes for relating lays bare and wide open some of the ingredients of its very own author, as beautifully encountered in real life and hopefully poetically and anthropologically brought to paper. To my literal blood kin, the closest recipes for relating ever imagined. To my family for bearing with me during those two years of my MA, thanks for bearing with me skipping family obligations and gatherings, for staying patient with my irritability and incredible moodiness, and being patient with my lack of enthusiasm and overall neurotic state of mind as writing this thesis brought of me. This thesis is yours as much as it is mine. To mama Naglaa Mahmoud Youssef El-Aidy for teaching me how to love, endlessly give, and unworldly stay present in all moments and states. Thanks for adding so many lives to my own, for your overflowing love that I will forever struggle to reciprocate, let alone find anywhere else. Thanks for being so irreplaceable, and for training me to have an unworldly heart and so confidently give love and kindness. All that I am and have come to be is you, with a sincere wish that God