Focusing on the political life of the popular classes (the sha'b) of Cairo, this study demonstrates how people have developed creative and effective strategies to accomplish shared goals. Starting at the household level, it examines communal allocation, distribution and decision-making.
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Editorial Reviews
From Scientific American
[An] outstanding piece of scholarship that forces us to rethink and broaden our understanding of political participation.
--This text refers to the
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From The New Yorker
Explains many of the subtleties of everyday Egyptian life and then, with great verve, shows [their] significance ... for the government.
--This text refers to the
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Avenues of Participation,
By Daniel Pipes, Middle East Forum, Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Avenues of Participation: Family, Politics, and Networks in Urban Quarters of Cairo (Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics) (Hardcover)
Singerman spent years living in "popular" (i.e., poor) parts of Cairo and came away with a fund of knowledge. In "Avenues of Participation" she explains many of the subtleties of everyday Egyptian life and then, with great verve, shows the significance of these patters for the government. Perhaps the most fascinating of her explanations have to do with marriage. As every resident in Cairo will testify, the subject of marriage comes up in conversation almost hourly. Singerman shows why: because marriage involves not just a man and woman but also their entire families; and because it has huge implications for their social, economic, and even political lives. "Parents organize their savings and consumption strategies to be able to finance the marriage of their children, sacrificing their material comfort for the future of the family-not unlike parents in the United States who begin saving for a child's college education as soon as he or she is born." Singerman explains how, on a national scale, the drive to finance marriages has profound implications for the state. The jam`iyat, a huge network of informal savings associations, keep most capital out of the state's hands; the preoccupation with saving a penny here and a penny there causes many Egyptians to live so close to the edge, they depend on subsidized food-making it difficult for the government to cut subsidies; and the millions of Egyptians who emigrate to countries like Libya and Iraq earning money for marriages tie the government's latitude in conducting foreign policy. Middle East Quarterly, June 1995
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
IN URBAN QUARTERS of Cairo, 'id-dallalaat (female peddlers) organize extensive networks of women who collect ration cards from neighbors and kin, bribe local employees of government food cooperatives, and endure raucous crowds outside cooperatives in densely populated areas in order to obtain a large volume of government-subsidized and distributed food. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
economically active sample, informal savings associations, familial ethos, informal political institutions, secondary economic activity, secondary school exams, organizational grid, formal banking system, subsidized commodities, primary economic activity, tertiary sources, inactive population, informal economic activity, food cooperatives Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Saudi Arabia, Open Door, Middle Eastern, United States, National Democratic Party, Active Public Public, Inactive Housewife, Labor Court, President Mubarak, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Social Affairs, President Sadat, Private Private, Upper Egypt, Eastern Europe, Labor Day New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
IN URBAN QUARTERS of Cairo, 'id-dallalaat (female peddlers) organize extensive networks of women who collect ration cards from neighbors and kin, bribe local employees of government food cooperatives, and endure raucous crowds outside cooperatives in densely populated areas in order to obtain a large volume of government-subsidized and distributed food. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
economically active sample, informal savings associations, familial ethos, informal political institutions, secondary economic activity, secondary school exams, organizational grid, formal banking system, subsidized commodities, primary economic activity, tertiary sources, inactive population, informal economic activity, food cooperatives Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Saudi Arabia, Open Door, Middle Eastern, United States, National Democratic Party, Active Public Public, Inactive Housewife, Labor Court, President Mubarak, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Social Affairs, President Sadat, Private Private, Upper Egypt, Eastern Europe, Labor Day New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 95
books:
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89
books
cite this book:
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- Accommodating Protest by Arlene MacLeod on 5 pages
- Women in Nineteenth-Century Egypt (Cambridge Middle East Library) by Judith E. Tucker on 5 pages
- Family in Contemporary Egypt by Andrea B. Rugh on 4 pages
- Understanding Political Development by Myron Weiner on 4 pages
- Political Development: Essays in Heuristic Theory by Gabriel Abraham, Almond on 4 pages
See all 95 books this book cites
- Rethinking Islamist Politics: Culture, the State and Islamism (Library of Modern Middle East Studies) by Salwa Ismail on 4 pages
- Rethinking Islamist Politics: Culture, the State and Islamism by Salwa Ismail on 4 pages
- Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach (Indiana Series in Middle East Studies) by Quintan Wiktorowicz on 4 pages
- Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach (Indiana Series in Middle East Studies) by Quintan Wiktorowicz on 4 pages
- Cairo Cosmopolitan: Politics, Culture, and Urban Space in the New Middle East by Diane Singerman on 4 pages
See all 89 books citing this book
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