Thirst revolution: practices of contestation and mobilisation in rural Egypt

ABSTRACT

Between 2007 and 2018, water-based protests in Egypt received extensive visibility in media headlines. These protests were first sparked by events in a village in the Nile Delta in 2007; since this demonstration, water-based protests, known as Thawrat al-‘Atash or the Thirst Revolution, have become widespread. Nevertheless, the vast majority of academic research looking at social movements in Egypt has focused on urban protests. This paper investigates the dynamics of water-focused protests in rural Egypt. We use a political ecology approach to understand ecological distribution conflicts and the perceived unjust distribution of water that was behind the social unrest. The article includes a classification of local-scale water-based protests in rural Egypt, which breaks down their causes and shows how the protest movement is embedded within biophysical, water management and agriculture development politics.

KEYWORDS:

• Rural Egypt
• Political ecology
• Water policies
• Social movements
• Nile River

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Dr Isaac Kyere of the University of Kassel for producing the map showing the locations of the protests for this paper. Part of the time that Dr Saker El Nour spent working on this paper was financed through a postdoctoral fellowship at the Global Scholarly Dialogue Program of the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung. This publication was also made possible in part through the support received by Dr Hussam Hussein from the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford. The views expressed in this paper are the sole responsibility of the authors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Article 5 of the contract between the General Authority for Reconstruction and Agricultural Development projects and the Kingdom Company, this contract was signed on Wednesday, 16 September 1998. The Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights published the contract in the following link: https://ecesr.org/?p=1785

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Saker El Nour

Saker El Nour is a visiting Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Politics, Otto-Suhr Institute of Political Sciences, Freie Universität Berlin and the International Research Group on Authoritarianism and Counter-Strategies of the Rosa Luxembourg Foundation. His scholarly interests include political ecology, rural sociology, rural social movements, and agri-environmental politics, with a focus on Arab countries.

Heather Elaydi

Heather Elaydi is a PhD student in International Development at the University of East Anglia. Her research focuses on food systems in contexts of protracted conflict and violence, primarily in West Asia and North Africa.

Hussam Hussein

Hussam Hussein is a Departmental Lecturer in International Relations at the Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR), Oxford Martin Fellow in Water Diplomacy, member of the Middle East Centre, and Fulford Junior Research Fellow at Somerville College.