Development, Change and Gender in Cairo: A View from the Household (Indiana Series in Arab & Islamic Studies) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0253210496 ISBN 13: 9780253210494

Publisher: Indiana University Press, 1996

Synopsis

"...the quality of each of these essays is excellent, and the book warrants extensive reading by political scientists, sociologists, and all scholars of the contemporary Middle East. -American Journal of Sociology "This book's ethnographic material offers much to surprise and challenge assumptions about gender, Islam and social change in Egypt." -MESA Bulletin "Taken together, these articles leave the reader with an excellent understanding of the realities of contemporary Egypt and a sense of the vitality and energy that permeates Cairo." -Digest of Middle East Studies The essays presented here, based on extensive ethnographic research, focus on the Egyptian household as the key institution for understanding the dynamics of political, economic, and social change. Economic liberalization has had particular, often ambivalent consequences for low-income groups, especially women, and for gender relations.

About this title

About the Author

DIANE SINGERMAN is Associate Professor in the Department of Government, School of Public Affairs, at the American University. She is the author of Avenues of Participation: Families, Politics, and Networks in Urban Quarters of Cairo. HOMA HOODFAR is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University in Montreal. She has carried out research on the impact of development and social change on the lives of Muslim women in Cairo, Teheran, and Montreal.

From the Back Cover

The authors of these rich ethnographic essays demonstrate that the Egyptian household plays a crucial, if largely overlooked, role into the dynamics of political, economic, and social change. While Western social scientists have assumed that employment outside the home improves women's autonomy and economic status, economic liberalization in Egypt is shown here to have worsened the economic situation of women and undermined their authority within the household. The collection explains why such everyday issues as unemployment, government subsidies, gender relations, housing, political participation, educational mobility, and the standard of living have become increasingly politicized at he household level, a development that has direct implications in the context of Islamist challenges to the state.

Edition details

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0253210496
• ISBN 13: 9780253210494
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240
• Editor: Singerman Diane, Hoodfar Homa