How Culture and Politics Intersect in Post-January 2011 Egypt

Abstract

This issue of the International Journal of Sociology focuses on the linkages between culture and politics in Post-January 2011 Egypt. Although many dramatic changes have taken place in the last four years in the Egyptian context, in some respects these have not resulted in large-scale institutional transformation or visible changes to the social order to the casual observer. Change has taken place in many aspects of Egyptian society. The five articles in this issue illuminate many aspects of how culture and politics intersect both around and in the years since the 2011 uprising. They reveal an attempt to understand the lived experience of the uprising and protesting among various groups of Egyptians as well as providing social and historical context to these experiences. They also describe how individuals are reclaiming youthfulness in spaces they are defining through their participation in social non-movements.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The editor would like to gratefully acknowledge the instrumental work of Ms. Summer Allen from the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University on this issue of IJS, whose efforts were vital in shaping this issue.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Helen Mary Rizzo

Helen Mary Rizzo is an associate professor of sociology in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology and Egyptology at the American University in Cairo. Her work focuses on gender, inequality, political sociology, and development in the Middle East, specifically social movement campaigns against public space sexual harassment in Egypt.