Harry Pettit
Hopeful City: Meritocracy and Affect in Global Cairo
Pettit, Harry
Authors
Abstract
© 2018 Urban Research Publications Limited Contemporary forms of ‘world-class’ or ‘global’ city making have displaced, excluded and imperilled millions of urban inhabitants across the global South. This article departs from conventional approaches in urban geography to understanding the relationship ‘global cities’ forge with those inhabitants, which focus on the displacement, resistance and inventive survival of the poor within the ‘informal city’. Instead, it highlights more interstitial and less combative experiences. First, it explicates the presence of a group of Egyptians stripped of their ability to forge a middle-class life in the context of Cairo's ‘global city’ project. Thereafter, rather than focusing on their propensity to engage in political mobilization—a dominant trend after Egypt's 2011 Uprising—the article utilizes 11 months of ethnographic fieldwork to argue that Cairo's ‘global’ city offers up a semblance of inclusion to this excluded group. By extending a meritocratic promise that ‘global’ belonging is achievable through hard work, it keeps aspirational young men attached to a feeling of hope. The article therefore shows not how ‘global’ or ‘world-class’ urban projects induce the resistance of wider urban populations, but how they secure legitimacy.
Citation
Pettit, H. (2018). Hopeful City: Meritocracy and Affect in Global Cairo. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 42(6), 1048-1063. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12695
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Mar 15, 2018 |
Online Publication Date | Sep 25, 2018 |
Publication Date | Nov 1, 2018 |
Deposit Date | Jun 15, 2018 |
Publicly Available Date | Sep 26, 2020 |
Journal | International Journal of Urban and Regional Research |
Print ISSN | 0309-1317 |
Electronic ISSN | 1468-2427 |
Publisher | Wiley |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 42 |
Issue | 6 |
Pages | 1048-1063 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12695 |
Keywords | middle-class, global city, neoliberal rationalities, hope, affect, youth, urban margins |
Public URL | https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/875519 |
Publisher URL | https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12695 |
Additional Information | This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Pettit, H. (2018) Hopeful city: Meritocracy and affect in global Cairo. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 42 (6). pp. 1048-1063, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12695. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving. |
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