CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020
| Author | Elsehamy, Elsayed |
|---|---|
| Title | The Screams of The Butterfly: An Ethnography of Exiled Egyptian Political Activists in Berlin |
| Summary | My research concerns the experience of exile after the 2011 revolutionary uprising in Egypt. Based on ethnographic engagement with a group of exiled Egyptian political activists who chose Berlin as their destination, I analyze their subjectivity formation and social becoming in exile. Through ethnographic findings, each chapter discusses one dimension of the complex process of becoming an exile. My main argument is two-fold: firstly, I argue that the socio-political phenomenon of exile is at the heart of Egyptian post-2013 politics and Egypt’s counter-revolutionary aftermath. The exiles, who are the families and friends of the political prisoners in Egypt and the revolutionaries of the 2011 uprising are inseparable to the emergence of the post-2013 military-backed regime. Thus, studying the causes of the exiles closely is a way of articulating types of marginalization in contemporary Egypt. Secondly, the exiles are dysphoric subjects, who are shattered between the realities of exile, and their lived pasts and longing for return. I attempt to understand how the exiles feel their losses and experience their (suspended) relations with Egypt in exile. I focus on their emotions, dreams and narratives of their time in exile, to argue that the exiles are dysphoric subjects who are in a state of unease, uncertainty and in-betweenness due to their multiple losses. The dysphoric subjectivity I show is a painful process of becoming an exile. The exiles try to enliven and emplace the conditions of exile. As they are in transition, dysphoric subjects are also in dynamic, changing states of self-discovery and becoming. I contend that marginality, exile, could be a way of shaping types of political subjectivities that go beyond the national boundaries. |
| Supervisor | Rajaram, Prem Kumar. Sandara-Cucu, Alina |
| Department | Sociology MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2020/elsehamy_elsayed.pdf |
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