Marginality and Exclusion in Egypt and the Middle East

Edited by Habib Ayeb, Ray Bush

What does it mean to be marginalized? Is it a passive condition that the disadvantaged simply have to endure? Or is it a manufactured label, re-produced and by its nature transitory?

In the wake of the new Egyptian revolution, this insightful collection explores issues of power, politics and inequality in Egypt and the Middle East. It argues that the notion of marginality tends to mask the true power relations that perpetuate poverty and exclusion. It is these dynamic processes of political and economic transformation that need explanation.

The book provides a revealing analysis of key areas of the Egyptian political economy such as labour, urbanization and the creation of slums, disability, refugees, street children and agrarian livelihoods, reaching the impactful conclusion that marginalization does not mean total exclusion. What is marginalized can be called upon to play a dynamic part in the future–as is the case with the revolution that toppled President Mubarak.

Contents

Part one: Marginality, poverty and political economy

1. Introduction: ‘Locating marginality and poverty in Egypt and the Middle East’- Ray Bush and Habib Ayeb
2., ‘Marginality: Curse or Chance?’–Asef Bayat
3. ‘Marginality or Abjection? The political economy of poverty production in Egypt’–Ray Bush

Part two: Creating and reproducing marginality

4., ‘Marginalised Middle East–regional dimensions and regional conflicts’–Ali Kadri
5. ‘Marginalisation of Egypt’s small farmers’–Habib Ayeb
6. ‘Margins and Frontiers: Two cases from Egypt’–Reem Saad
7. ‘Space, Transport and marginality in Cairo’–Dalia Wahdan
8. ‘Informalisation and Minorities in the new popular peripheries of the global south’–Agnes Deboulet

Part three: Marginal and the not so marginal?

9. ‘Labour marginalised? Worker struggles and political transformation’–Rabab el Mahdi
10.’Targeting poor people; poverty and marginalization in rural Upper Egypt’–Saker El-Nour
11. ‘Working with Street Kids: Unsettling accounts from Cairo’–Kamal Fahmi
12. ‘African Students in Cairo’, Sophie Bava
13. ‘Wading through treacle: The marginalization of female commercial school graduates in the Egyptian informal market’–Moushira Elgeziri
14. ‘Disability in Transition in Egypt: between Marginalization and Rights’–Heba Hegrass
15. ‘The production of marginalization : Status Degradation Ceremony , and Scandals in Egypt’–Enrique Klaus

About the Authors

Habib Ayeb is a researcher at the Social Research Center, American University in Cairo, Egypt. His research focuses on agrarian change, water resources, poverty and marginality. He has worked in the Ministry of Agriculture in Tunisia, the University of Paris 8-St Denis, CEDEJ (Centre d’Etudes et de Documentation Juridiques et Sociales), IRD (Institute of Research for Development) and the SRC.

Ray Bush is Professor of African Studies and Development Politics at the University of Leeds. He has worked on and in Africa for 25 years. He researchs the political economy of economic reform and rural transformation currently in Egypt and Ghana. He is the author of Poverty and Neoliberalism: Persistence and Reproduction in the Global South (Pluto Books, London,2007) and deputy chair of The Review of African Political Economy.