Cairo Papers emerged in 1977, when a group of scholars in the School of Humanities and Social Science and the Social Research Center at AUC developed the idea of the journal. The aim was to produce a monograph series dedicated not only to demonstrate the relevance of Middle Eastern social science vis-à-vis Western theoretical orientations but also to share with dedicated Western scholars the fruits of indigenous research into issues and problems of differential development in the Middle East. The founding members of the Cairo Papers included Profs. Tim Sullivan, Ali Dessouki, Mark Kennedy, Nicholas Hopkins and Asaad Nadim.

Cairo Papers in Social Science is the American University in Cairo’s long-running English-language journal monograph, published by the American University in Cairo Press.

  • A key feature of Cairo Papers is interdisciplinarity, best reflected in the diversity of the research published—spanning the fields of political science, economics, sociology, and anthropology, as well as history, journalism, media studies, gender studies, law, arts, and psychology.
  • Located in Cairo, Egypt, Cairo Papers’ scope is the production of critical social science and humanities knowledge in and about the Middle East.
  • Cairo Papers is committed to promoting emerging scholars in the region mainly through publications and workshops.
  • One of Cairo Papers’ missions is to foster the international circulation of knowledge produced in the region by Arabic-speaking scholars and from outlets with limited access to international circuits of the print economy.
  • Cairo Papers is dedicated to publishing and debating knowledge produced through original field-based research that is innovative in its methodologies, creative in its questions, and rigorous in its use of conceptual paradigms.
  • Cairo Papers provides a critical venue for engaging with timely events emerging in the region from a critical academic and interdisciplinary perspective.

Follow

Books from 2021

Biographies of Port Said Everydayness of State, Dwellers, and Strangers, Mostafa Mohie

Books from 2020

On Friendship between the No Longer and the Not Yet: An Ethnographic Account, Soha Mohsen

Book Chapters from 2019

Migration and Refugee ‘Crisis’ in the Euro-Mediterranean Region: Which ‘Crisis’? And for Whom?, Ibrahim Awad

Interest Groups and Refugee Policy-Making: The Case of Germany, Maysa Ayoub

Kaleidoscopic Out-Migration: The Departure of Foreigners from Mid Twentieth Century Egypt, Angelos Dalachanis

Waiting in Izmir: Syrians in the Aegean Region after the “EU–Turkey Deal”, Gerda Heck

Understanding the Public Sector in Egyptian Cinema: A State Venture, Tamara Chahine Maatouk

Culturalized, Gendered, and Fractured Approaches to the Integration of Refugees in Brussels, Alexandra Parrs

Diaspora Politics in Illiberal Contexts: Authoritarianism and Cross-Border Mobility in the Modern Middle East, Gerasimos Tsourapas

Between Italy and Egypt: Migrating Histories and Political Genealogies, Joseph John Viscomi

Book Chapters from 2018

The Production of Alternative Knowledge: Political Participation of Palestinian Women since the 1930s: A Case Study, Faiha Abdulhadi

Oral History in Times of Change: Gender, Documentation, and the Making of Archives: Introduction, Hoda Elsadda and Hanan Sabea

Recuperating Women’s Memory as Knowledge: Sudan’s Conflict Zones, Sondra Hale

Testimonio as Methodology: Archiving, Translating, and Theorizing Egyptian Women’s Experiences of Gendered Violence in the January 25th Revolution, Manal Hamzeh

Narrating Gender in Egypt’s Public Sphere: The Archive of Women’s Oral History, Maissan Hassan and Diana Magdy

Palestinian Memory in Light of New Technology: Opportunities and Challenges, Nahawand El Kaderi Issa

Memory, Memoir and Oral History, Jean Said Makdisi

Women’s Activism and Contending Narratives of Liberation in South Africa, Noor Nieftagodien

The Novel as a Repository for Oral and Women’s History, Rafif Saidawy

Documenting the Oral History of Iraqis in Times of Conflict: Challenges, Ethics, and Standards of Practice, Lucine Taminian

University on the Square: Documenting Egypt’s 21st-Century Revolution Project, Stephen Urgola

Book Chapters from 2017

Food Issues and Revolution: The Process of Dispossession, Class Solidarity, and Popular Uprising: The Case of Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia, Habib Ayeb

We Are What We Eat, We Were What We Ate, Hala N. Barakat

Agri-food System Dynamics in a South Lebanon Village, 1920–2015, Saker El Nour

Killing Them Softly: Dietary Deficiencies and Food Insecurity in Twentieth-Century Egypt, Ellis Goldberg

Gulf Land Acquisitions in Egypt and Sudan: Food Security or the Agro-commodity Supply Chain?, Christian Henderson

Politics of Food Aid: From Politicization to Integration, Khaled Mansour

Where is Our Balady Food?, Sara Pozzi and Sara El Sayed

Reflection on the Concept of Hunger: The Case of Egypt between 2008 and 2011, Malak S. Rouchdy

The Food Question in the Middle East - Introduction, Malak S. Rouchdy and Iman A. Hamdy

Book Chapters from 2016

Sport in the Arab World in Postcolonial Context, Mahfoud Amara

Gender and Sport: Adolescent Girls in Upper Egypt, Lamia Bulbul

Soccer: Shaping the Middle East and North Africa, James M. Dorsey

Introduction: Why Study Sports in the Middle East?, Nicholas S. Hopkins

Street Soccer, Masculinity, and Patriarchal Reproduction in the Streets of Cairo, Nashaat Hussein

Here Comes the Carnival: Chanting and Performance among Organized Football Fandom in Egypt, Dalia Ibraheem

Organizing the Unorganized Migrant Domestic Workers in Lebanon, Farah Kobaissy

The Paradoxes of Women’s Football in Tunisia: The Case of the National Team, Monia Lachheb

Institutions and Discourses of Sports in the Modern Middle East, Murat C. Yıldız

Sports in Egypt: Mimic–Real Spectrum, Ereny Zarif

Book Chapters from 2015

Tumult, Trauma, and Resilience: Psychological Well-being of Cairenes One Year Following the January 25, 2011 Uprisings, Deena Abdelmonem, Salma N. Mohamed, Tiya Abdel-Malek, and Mona M. Amer

Militarism, Neoliberalism, and Revolution in Egypt, Zeinab Abul-Magd

Islah, from Gift to Right, Yasmine Ahmed

Adapting to Change: Tribal Influence on the 2011–2012 Parliamentary Elections in Aswan Governorate, Hans Christian and Korsholm Nielsen

The Church in the Square: Negotiations of Religion and Revolution at an Evangelical Church in Cairo, Anna Jeannine Dowell

Labor Struggles and the Quest for Permanent Employment in Revolutionary Egypt, Dina Makram Ebeid

International Tourism in Post-revolution Egypt: Value Conflict and Economic Pragmatism, Sandrine Gamblin

The Egyptian Economy – A Dream Deferred?, Ellis Goldberg

Islamic Finance in the New Egypt, Clement M. Henry

The Political Economy of the New Egyptian Republic, Nicholas S. Hopkins

Affordable Housing Policies in Egypt after the 2011 Revolution: More of the Same?, David Sims

Egyptian Hip-Hop: Expressions from the Underground, Ellen R. Weis

Books from 2014

Femininity and Dance in Egypt: Embodiment and Meaning in al-Raqs al-Baladi, Noha Roushdy

Negotiating Space: The Evolution of the Egyptian Streets, 2000-2011, Dimitris Soudias

Books from 2013

Agrarian Transformation in the Arab World: Persistent and Emerging Challenges, Habib Ayeb and Reem Saad

Agrarian Transformation in the Arab World: Persistent and Emerging Challenges, Habib Ayeb and Reem Saad

Gender, Poverty and Agro-Biodiversity Conservationin Rural Egypt and Tunisia, Habib Ayeb and Reem Saad

What’s Urban about Rural Egypt?, Habib Ayeb and Reem Saad

What’s Urban about Rural Egypt?, Habib Ayeb and Reem Saad

Book Chapters from 2010

Masculinity on Shifting Grounds: Emasculation and the Rise of the Islamist Political Scene in Post-Mubarak Egypt, Mustafa Abdalla

Masculinity and Spatial Trajectories in the Contemporary Arabic Novel, Samira Aghacy

Anthropology in Egypt 1900-67: Culture, Function, and Reform, Nicholas S. Hopkins

Revolutionary Mankind: Egypt and the Time of al Futuwwa, Wilson Jacob

Internationalizing Interwar Egypt's Bachelor Tax Proposal: The Emasculation of the State and its Single Sons, Hana Khaoloussy

The Death of the Father in Contemporary Tunisian Film, Florence Martin

Introduction: The State of the Field of Masculinity Studies, Helen Rizzo

The Role of Women's-Rights Organizations in Promoting Masculine Responsibility: The Anti-Sexual Harassment Campaign in Egypt, Helen Rizzo

The Experience of Protest: Masculinity and Agency Among Sudanese Refugees in Cairo, Martin Timothy Rowe

Book Chapters from 2009

Fifty Years of State Land Distribution in the Syrian Jazira: Agrarian Reform, Agrarian Counter-reform, and the Arab Belt Policy (1958-2008), Myriam Ababsa

Gender, Poverty and Agro-Biodiversity Conservationin Rural Egypt and Tunisia, Habib Ayeb and Reem Saad

Gender, Poverty, and Agro-Biodiversity Conservation in Rural Egypt and Tunisia, Habib Ayeb and Reem Saad

Revisiting Agrarian Transformation in the Arab Region, Habib Ayeb and Reem Saad

Biodiversity and Social Change in Ishkeul National Park, Tunisia, Sonia Ben Meriem

Of Fish and Profit: Large - and Small scale Fishing in Lake Nasser, Hadeer ElShafie

A Half-Century of Wheat Farming in Egypt: Self-Sufficency, Marketable Surplus, and Farm Size, Francois Ireton

Participating in Agribusiness: Contested Meanings of Rurality and Water in Jordan, Mauro Van Aken

Planning Egypt's New Settlements: The Politics of Spatial Inequities, Dalia Wahdan

Book Chapters from 2008

Intersecting Photography with Text: Reflections on a Working Process, Mona Abaza

Photographic Practices and the Egyptian Imaginary: Intersecting Photography with Text: Reactions on a Working Process, Mona Abaza

Social Ties between the people of al Walaja village at home and abroad, Sheerin Al-Araj

Epistemological Intersections: Anthropology and Art - From Archive to Art Film: A Palestinian Aesthetics of Memory Reviewed, Diana Allam

From Archive to Art Film: A Palestinian Aesthetics of Memory Reviewed, Diana Allan

Kefaya at a turning point, Mustapha Kamel Al-Sayyid

"No Ideas but in Things": A Documentary Art Short on Message, Yasser Alwan

Photographic Practices and the Egyptian Imaginary: “No Ideas But in Things”: A Documentary Art Short on Message, Yasser Alwan

Europe in Asia: Mosques and Temples in the Age of Discovery, David Blanks

Sacred Space: an Introduction, David Blanks and Bradley S. Clough

Exploding into the seventies: Ahmad Fu'ad Nigm, Shiekh Imam, and the aesthetics of a new youth politics, Marilyn Booth

When "enough" is not enough: Resistance during accumulation by dispossession, Ray Bush

The Buddha in the Dunes: The Aesthetics of Alientation and the Sacred in the Surreal Japanese Novel, Richard Byford

The Sacrament of Mari Giris: Rituals of Contact and Consumption at a Coptic Orthodox Saint's Festival in Upper Egypt, Cassandra R. Chambliss

Worker protests under economic liberalization in Egypt, Francoise Clement

Communitas or Contestation? Buddhist-Hindu Practices and Interactions at "The Holiest Place in Sri Lanka", Bradley S. Clough

Funerary Riturals in Cairo's City of the Dead: The Sacred and the Profane, Considerations from the Field, Anna Tozzi di Marco

Itineraries of Palestinian refugees, Mohamed Kamel Dorai

Epistemological Intersections: Anthropology and Art - Knowledge Production and the Visual Medium, Fadwa El Guindi

Knowledge Production and the Visual Medium, Fadwa el Guindi

A feminist movement in Egypt?, Rabab El-Mahdi

Evidence of What? The Photographic Archive and its Problematics, Heba Farid

Photographic Practices and the Egyptian Imaginary: Evidence of What? The Photographic Archive and Its Problematics, Heba Farid