Revolutionary Life: The Everyday of the Arab Spring

This document was uploaded by one of our users. The uploader already confirmed that they had the permission to publish it. If you are author/publisher or own the copyright of this documents, please report to us by using this DMCA report form.

Simply click on the Download Book button.

Yes, Book downloads on Ebookily are 100% Free.

Sometimes the book is free on Amazon As well, so go ahead and hit "Search on Amazon"

From a leading scholar of the Middle East and North Africa comes a new way of thinking about the Arab Spring and the meaning of revolution.

From the standpoint of revolutionary politics, the Arab Spring can seem like a wasted effort. In Tunisia, where the wave of protest began, as well as in Egypt and the Gulf, regime change never fully took hold. Yet if the Arab Spring failed to disrupt the structures of governments, the movement was transformative in farms, families, and factories, souks and schools.

Seamlessly blending field research, on-the-ground interviews, and social theory, Asef Bayat shows how the practice of everyday life in Egypt and Tunisia was fundamentally altered by revolutionary activity. Women, young adults, the very poor, and members of the underground queer community can credit the Arab Spring with steps toward equality and freedom. There is also potential for further progress, as women’s rights in particular now occupy a firm place in public discourse, preventing retrenchment and ensuring that marginalized voices remain louder than in prerevolutionary days. In addition, the Arab Spring empowered workers: in Egypt alone, more than 700,000 farmers unionized during the years of protest. Labor activism brought about material improvements for a wide range of ordinary people and fostered new cultural and political norms that the forces of reaction cannot simply wish away.

In Bayat’s telling, the Arab Spring emerges as a paradigmatic case of “refolution”―revolution that engenders reform rather than radical change. Both a detailed study and a moving appeal,
Revolutionary Life identifies the social gains that were won through resistance.

Author(s): Asef Bayat
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Year: 2021

Language: English
Pages: 336
City: Cambridge

Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Introduction
1. Everyday Life and Revolution
2. The Subaltern under Autocracies
3. The Subaltern in the Uprisings
4. The Poor and Plebeian
5. Mothers, Daughters, and the Gender Paradox
6. Children of Revolution
7. The Social World
8. Whatever Happened to the Revolution?
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index