The materiality of lived citizenship: mobilising against infrastructural neglect in Egypt’s Nile Delta

Abstract

ABSTRACT In September 2012, the village of al-Tahseen in the Nile Delta governorate of al-Daqahliyyah launched a civil disobedience movement, announcing ‘administrative independence’ from the local municipal government. The leaders of the village movement cited decades of state neglect in providing basic infrastructural services, primarily a three-kilometre road from the village to the closest regional road. Community members held the government accountable for the harmful consequences of the absence of a viable road, including numerous accidents and deaths. This demand for infrastructure is at the heart of this article. Through a lived citizenship framework, this article argues that people’s everyday interactions and engagements with the state, as well as their understanding of their place as citizens in return, emerge from their engagements, constructions, and demands for infrastructure provision. The article equally sheds light on a case study of rural mobilisation, when most scholarly productions of Egypt’s 25 January 2011 Revolution and its reverberations have focused on urban-based mobilisation experiences.