Cultural life in the cracks of the projects. The development of cultural palaces in al-Sisi's Egypt

0577874 - OÚ 2024 eng A - Abstract
Šabasevičiūtė, Giedrė
Cultural life in the cracks of the projects. The development of cultural palaces in al-Sisi's Egypt.
[British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES) Annual Conference 2023: Ecology, Crisis and Power in the Middle East. Exeter, 03.07.2023-05.07.2023]
Method of presentation: Přednáška
URL events: https://www.brismes.ac.uk/conference/past-conferences/2023-conference 
Institutional support: RVO:68378009
Keywords : Egypt * infrastructure * literature
OECD category: Antropology, ethnology

The vision of the new Egypt promoted by ‘Abd al-Fatah al-Sisi comprises the cultural sector as well. Since a few years, Egypt has been pursuing the plan of revitalizing its cultural palaces, houses, and libraries as part of the neutralization campaign of “post-revolutionary radicalism.” Dubbed Cultural Palaces Development Plan and located at the intersection of a myriad of other state initiatives – such as “Decent Life” and “the New Republic” – the plan consists of, among other things, the renovation of the existing cultural palaces inherited from the Nasserist project of cultural welfare. However, the transition between al-Sisi’s and Nasser’s projects is not straightforward, condemning some cultural establishments to the extended periods of waiting for reconstructions. This condition is experienced as a temporal limbo between the present state of neglect of a palace and the imagined future of cultural life that would be enabled by its reconstruction.
This presentation interrogates cultural practices and imaginaries that arise in the cracks of the superseding projects of cultural palaces. How does the current frenzy of renovations of cultural palaces affect literary communities that have been produced by them? What temporal registers they mobilize in making sense of the current state of cultural welfare? To what extent the return of the state in culture engenders a temporal folding back to Nasserist era? Based on ethnographic research conducted between 2017 and 2022 in Cairo’s cultural palaces, this presentation explores the intersections between cultural practices and the communal attachments to material structures of buildings.

Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0347387