CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2022
| Author | Ahmed Elmongy |
|---|---|
| Title | Learning in Difficult Times: The Case of a Prefigurative Space in Post-2013 Egypt |
| Summary | In the past 11 years, Egyptians have experienced tumultuous times with extreme political and social transitions, with a revolution in 2011 changing the country and altering the trajectory of many lives. The revolution was a turning point for a generation that sparked hope and the possibility of a different future and a transformation in the country. Witnessing the revolution inspired various people to take the initiative toward forms of change and alternatives, not only in politics. But the revolutionary moment did not last long, with the 2013 coup marking the beginning of a new era that shattered the hopes and possibilities of the revolutionaries. This coup brought an authoritarian system to power, which eventually brought the revolution to a halt through oppressive measures. In my thesis, I investigate the alternative education and the learning spaces that emerged in Egypt after the 2011 revolution as an afterlife and a continuity for the revolution. How these spaces enact forms of prefigurative politics through everyday politics of solidarity and alternative ways of being and knowing in repressive and tough times of the post-2013 Egypt. I demonstrate how under counter-revolutionary repression where the public space is depoliticized, new meanings and spaces of politics and resistance emerge. Using the case of one of the learning spaces in Cairo, Egypt, I look at the revolution beyond being a mere event but as a process, how it has its afterlives and how in time of repression, the political expands through other means and forms. I employ a prefigurative lens (ways of organizing and social relationships in the present that reflect future goals) in understanding the case study at hand and how its participants engage in alternative lifestyles, ways of being and define politics as an act of the everyday. |
| Supervisor | Rajaram, Prem Kumar; Markkula, Johanna |
| Department | Sociology MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2022/el-mongy_ahmed.pdf |
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