Did as-Saʿidiyya really revolt? An ethnographic investigation

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate and inspect the causes that prevented the (marginalised and isolated) society of Saʿid from rebelling against President Mubarak’s authoritarian regime, as the North did. Here I seek to present different interpretation of as-Saʿidiyya’s attitudes toward the 2011 uprising away from the Manichean ‘glorification’ versus ‘ignominy’, or ‘celebrating’ v. ‘contempt’ narrative that dominated the study of the Saʿid and as-Saʿidiyya role in the 2011 Arab uprising. My research is based on interviews, participant observation and ethnographic investigation which articulates the behaviour of peasants as political actors in this time of turmoil, While most sociological and anthropological studies of revolutions concentrate on cities and urban areas, this article focuses on a small town, Madinat Al-Fikriyya, and village, Munshaʿiat Al-Fikriyya in Al-Minya governate in Upper Egypt. Therefore, to understand the role of as-Saʿidiyya in the 2011 uprising, the article suggests three conceptual changes to this convention. Firstly, by putting peasantry communities within socio-political and socio-economic contexts; secondly by concentrating on understanding the dynamics of state-society relations, and lastly, exploring the role of security establishment and levels of penetration into the society in order.