The Principled Fine Line in Egypt’s Sociology: Farewell Mona Abaza¹

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Notes

1 This Memoriam originally was published in the online E-zine Jadaliyya on July 22, 2021 under the title ‘Farewell and Thank you, Mona.’ The author and Middle East Critique are grateful to Jadaliyya for granting permission to reprint this slightly revised version of the Memoriam about the late Mona Abaza, a much admired and respected member of our journal’s International Advisory Board. In that capacity she had reviewed dozens of submitted papers about Egyptian society and always provided anonymously helpful advice for young scholars on how to strengthen their arguments. The original article is available at: jadaliyya.com/details/43120.

2 Published by Routledge (London) in 2002.

3 See Mona Abaza (2001) "Shopping malls, consumer culture and the reshaping of public space in Egypt, In: Theory, Culture & Society, 18(5), pp. 97-122; and Mona Abaza (2006) The changing consumer cultures of modern Egypt: Cairo's urban reshaping (Leiden, NL: Brill).

4 Mona Abaza, Mona Abaza (2016) "The field of graffiti and street art in post-January 2011 Egypt," in Jeffrey Ian Ross (ed.) Routledge Handbook of Graffiti and Street Art (London: Routledge), pp. 358-373.

5 See Mona Abaza (2014) Gender representation in graffiti post-25 January,"in Mikala Hyldig Dal (ed.), Cairo: Images of Transition: Perspectives on Visuality in Egypt 2011-2013. (New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 126-133; and Mona Abaza (2016) Repetitive repertoires: How writing about Cairene graffiti has turned into a serial monotony, in Konstantinos Avramidis & Myrto Tsilimpounidi (eds.), Graffiti and street art: Reading, writing and representing the city. (London: Routledge), pp. 193-210.

6 See, for example, an interview with Abaza in ‘Global Dialogue’ by prominent sociologist and former president of the American Sociological Association Professor Michael Burawoy, online at: https://globaldialogue.isa-sociology.org/the-fate-of-post-revolutionary-egypt-an-interview-with-mona-abaza/, accessed September 9, 2021; see also a piece she wrote for this blog at: https://globaldialogue.isa-sociology.org/ accessed September 9, 2021. She wrote as a single author and co-authored many pieces published by Open Democracy, available at this link: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/author/mona-abaza/ accessed September 9, 2021.

7 Mona Abaza (2010) Social sciences in Egypt: The swinging pendulum between commodification and criminalization, in Facing an unequal world: Challenges for a global sociology, 1, pp. 187-212. 

8 See her important interview with Professor Nezar AlSayyad on the challenges that confront scholars who study Middle Eastern cities, for the Blog of UC Berkeley’s School of Environmental Design, available at this link: https://ced.berkeley.edu/events-media/news/professor-nezar-alsayyad-discusses-difficulties-dilemmas-of-conducting-rese (Last accessed September 9, 2021)

9 See her introduction on Cairo Observer blog where she compares her experience as a student studying Cairo, then as a teacher, available in this link: https://cairobserver.com/post/132433665694/auc-students-describing-their-neighborhoods-a#.YTodcx1OmfU; accessed September 9, 2021.

10 See the Acknowledgment of Debates on Islam, p. xviii.

11 Mona Abaza (2013) The Cotton Plantation Remembered: An Egyptian family story (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press).

12 In this passage and the book, Abaza was reflecting on the loss of her mother, see The Cotton Plantation, p. 9

13 Mona Abaza (2020) Cairo Collages: Everyday life practices after the event (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press).

14 Alatas is the father of distinguished Malaysian sociologist Syed Farid Alatas, who has been a leading figure in retrieving Ibn Khaldūn as a founder of sociology globally.

15 Mona Abaza, Academic Tourists Sightseeing the Arab Spring, in Ahram Online, September 26, 2011. Available at: https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/22373.aspx, accessed September 9, 2021.