Female Youth in Contemporary Egypt: Post-Islamism and a New Politics of Visibility

Based on interview material, observations and content analysis, this book captures the everyday life structures of a cohort of Muslim/ex-Islamist female youth in Egypt who have joined or established new networks that share the common interest of doing ‘good’ to the society based on their religious worldviews, representing a broader societal movement.

Female Youth in Contemporary Egypt posits that despite the fact that the 2011 Egyptian uprisings did not necessarily materialize with the political effects anticipated by some of its activists, it seems to have led to the formation of a new generation of active youth with a distinct worldview. Four broad and intertwined theoretical considerations have been taken into account. First, the book delineates the emergence and continuous development of post- (and sometimes non-) bourgeois public spheres in Arabo-Islamic contexts and conceptualizes multiple publics of overlapping Islamic structures rather than one Islamic public. Second, it offers an empirical as well as a conceptual understanding of the positioning of religion as public/private. Third, it presents a critique of Islamist thought conducive to the rise of post-Islamism; and fourth it offers a critique of feminist thought to throw light on novel forms of Muslim women’s discourses and activism in line with post-Islamist worldviews.

This book will be of interest to scholars in Middle Eastern Studies, women’s studies, and political studies.