The Politics of the Urban Everyday in the Arab Revolutions

Speaker: Salwa Ismail, SOAS Chair: John Chalcraft, LSE In this seminar, Professor Ismail discusses dimensions of contention and oppositional action anchored in urban space. She addresses the following questions: How, in the context of the Arab Revolutions, did the urban-based mass protests link with existing patterns of urban political action? What forms of contentious action undergird and animate these protests? In answering these questions, she focuses on urban popular forces in Cairo, their modes of inhabiting the city, and on the politics of the urban everyday. Recorded on 12 February 2014. This seminar forms part of the 'Social Movements and Popular Mobilisation in the MENA Research Theme'.