Activism Amid Disappointment: Women’s Groups and the Politics of Hope in Egypt

Abstract

In this paper, I provide preliminary answers to two main questions, namely: How did the politics of disappointment unfold among female activists after the 2011 Egyptian uprising and specifically under the current regime? And what were the effects of the strong sense of emotional disappointment on women’s activism and collective action? The study is situated within the literature on emotions and contentious politics. Utilizing the rich theoretical tools found in the literature, I argue that disappointment did not mark the end of politics and activism among women’s groups in Egypt. The data for this paper was gathered from semi-structured interviews with female activists, protestors, and leaders of women’s rights groups. The data gathered was analyzed within the prism of critical discourse analysis in an attempt to empirically investigate how activists move both forward and backward as they navigate their own emotions in addition to a crippling political system. It is true that the situation is complicated and activism is restricted in Egypt, however, the essence of this research is ignited by participants’ affirmation that their experience in the uprising has changed them, and that “things cannot go back to the old days,” notwithstanding their disappointment over the turn of events. A focus on hope and disappointment places the experiences of activists squarely in our analysis. It allows researchers to reclaim the voices of female activists in explaining the challenges and opportunities that developed post the uprising and how these developments influenced and shaped their experience, movement, and mobilization.

The study of women and gender in the Middle East and North Africa beyond culturalism

“…For instance, as soon as the Mubarak regime was forced to resign by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, Egyptian women's activists were subjected to a systematic harassment campaign to deter them from taking to the streets. This shrinking political space for women's activism was then further restricted through legislative and administrative measures under President Sisi's regime (Allam, 2018). Likewise, in the aftermath of the Gezi Parkı demonstrations in Turkey, activists faced detention and legal charges, with many serving jail time.…”

Sustaining motivation: post-revolutionary oppositional consciousness among young Egyptian feminists

“…Another central concept that motivated feminists' oppositional consciousness, in particular the element in which members identified with members of the movement, was the feminists' narratives of the emotion of disappointment. Many scholars have explored the role of emotions in social movement mobilisation Polletta 2007, 2009;Hutchison and Bleiker 2014;Jasper 2011;Yang 2000), and emotions have been the focus in recent analyses of the Arab Spring uprisings and their aftermath (Allam 2018b;Coşkun 2019;Jumet 2017;Matthies-Boon 2017;Pearlman 2013). Allam (2018b) argues that, contrary to expectations, emotions of disappointment, guilt, and desperation can lead to resistance activists turning emotions of disappointment over the political context into action.…”

“…Many scholars have explored the role of emotions in social movement mobilisation Polletta 2007, 2009;Hutchison and Bleiker 2014;Jasper 2011;Yang 2000), and emotions have been the focus in recent analyses of the Arab Spring uprisings and their aftermath (Allam 2018b;Coşkun 2019;Jumet 2017;Matthies-Boon 2017;Pearlman 2013). Allam (2018b) argues that, contrary to expectations, emotions of disappointment, guilt, and desperation can lead to resistance activists turning emotions of disappointment over the political context into action. Disappointment becomes explicitly productive when it is a shared emotion (Jasper 2011).…”

“…Scholarly work studying how the state's return to authoritarianism affected activism concentrates on the fragmentation and dissolution of protests, political groups, and movements (Grimm and Harders 2018;Jumet 2017;Porta 2014a;Rennick 2018;Sika 2019). Other studies focus on the varied emotional effects the revolution's political aftermath had on activists (Allam 2018b;Ayanian and Tausch 2016;Matthies-Boon 2017). Allam's (2018a) research on female activists' disappointment stands out in this body of research since she argues that negative post-revolutionary emotions do not equal inaction.…”

Stand by lives: depoliticizing families of political prisoners in post-revolution Egypt

“…Since 2013, a body of literature examining the effect of repression from the perspective of individual activists has emerged. Part of this literature focuses on the role of emotions to explain processes of mobilization, demobilization, depoliticization and social trauma (Kienle and Sika 2015, Sika 2016a, 2016band 2017Allam 2018;Matthies-Boon and Head 2018). However, this literature remains largely focused on the actors who have mobilized in revolutionary process and in opposition to the regime, and who have been subjected to direct repression as a consequence, including imprisonment.…”