Bloggers' street movement and the right to the city. (Re)claiming Cairo's real and virtual “spaces of freedom”

Abstract

Faced with formidable challenges to expression in Cairo's public spaces, urban blogger activists have developed new ways of articulating dissent, namely spatial tactics ranging from boycott campaigns, cyber-activism and protest art, to innovations in mobilization, means of communication and organizational flexibility. This is particularly evident in the way these activists have (re)claimed Cairo's contested public spaces in downtown Unions Street and Midan al Tahrir (Liberation Square) and transformed them into zones for public protest, employing urban installations and street graffiti and constructing significant sites of urban resistance and spatial contestation. The emergence of this grassroots street activism opens up a new public sphere through which the role of urban governance might be contested to accommodate cultural identities within various forms of spatiality and popular democracy.