Description
This paper studies the relationship between urban tourism in Cairo, the 2011 Egyptian revolution, and the intensified neoliberal authoritarian regime that succeeded it. Tourism is a powerful global system. It governs a complex array of people and places, categorising and (de)prioritising them based on whether they are of value for tourism. ‘Touristic neoliberalism’ denotes how Egypt’s neoliberal restructuring since the 70s relied on and was (re)shaped by tourism, in the context of Egypt’s longer authoritarian history. This paper focuses on local struggles against the unequal conditions of touristic neoliberalism in four critical sites of contestation in Cairo – the Pyramids of Giza, Khan-al-Khalili Market, Garbage City and Tahrir Square – during the period surrounding the 2011 Egyptian revolution (2009-2014). These conditions resulted from three decades of national neoliberal reforms in the context of broader neoliberal globalisation and Egypt’s history of authoritarianism. Touristic Neoliberalism asks the following: how did contestations surrounding urban tourism not only fail to disrupt neoliberalism in Egypt but also play a crucial role in shaping a new adaptation of (neoliberal) authoritarianism? I argue that tourism in Cairo is a linchpin of the post-revolution adaptation of neoliberal authoritarianism in Egypt, which relies on previous hierarchies and new forms of control.
