Looking for the state and finding god: conceptions of security among low-income Cairenes

Abstract

This article analyses how low-income individuals in Cairo, Egypt interpret the aspects of security and insecurity that affect their daily lives. Particular attention is paid to crime and failing transportation infrastructure during Mohammed Morsi’s presidency, 2012–2013. Primarily, I show how religion is both a tool and coping mechanism to help combat chronic periods of insecurity. Participants invoke religion to force officials to perform their duties and to perform them honestly. Secondly, religion is called upon as a final form of mental and spiritual relief against injustice and the trials of daily urban life. This paper seeks to make an intervention into security studies by showing how Egyptians defend themselves through personal and communal understandings of religion in distinction to security practices enacted by the state and other national and international organizations.

Keywords:

• Cairo
• security
• urban
• Islam
• mobility
• violence

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Christine Elizabeth Smith is an urban and political geographer who primarily investigates the role of state violence within everyday life.

Notes

1 Forbidden by Islam