Voicing Change. The Popular Subject of Protest Music in Revolutionary Cairo (2011-2013)

Authors

  • Valeria Dessì University of Cagliari

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1285/i20356609v13i1p232

Keywords:

Egypt, Populism, Popular Music, Protest, Revolution

Abstract

Since the outbreak of protests in January 2011, arts have been central to the ongoing Egyptian revolution. In this article, I focus on protest music in Cairo in between 2011 and 2013 as a way to capture a specific interplay of popular culture and political engagement. Through examples of popular protest music and chants, I unpack the cultural and political construction of el sha'ab (the people) as a process in flux throughout the ongoing protests. Performances of popular protest music and chants in the square voiced grievances and pride, built solidarity, and helped shape the ideal of a unified and leaderless collective "we" against the oppressive regime. Older and newly composed protest songs articulated a genealogy of the revolutionary popular subject that was at once cultural and political. The last section reflects on the post-2013 era, focusing on the different political genealogy deployed by the state to redirect the revolutionary "popular will" into an authoritarian project.

Author Biography

Valeria Dessì, University of Cagliari

Valeria Dessì is a musician and anthrop­ologist. She received her Ph.D. in Gender Studies at SOAS, University of London, in 2017. Her ethnographic PhD thesis, based on a one-year fieldwork in Egypt in between 2012 and 2013, loo­ks at the interplay between gender-based violence, young fe­minist and women’s rights initiatives, and the nation-state in post-revolutiona­ry Cairo. She is cur­rently a Research Fellow at the Department of Anthropology of the University of Cagliari.

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Published

21-04-2020

Issue

Vol. 13, No. 1 (2020). Special Issue on:“The Cultural Side of Populism” & “Rethinking Money, Rebuilding Community”

Section

Special Issue/1

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