Abstract
This thesis explores the intersectional lived experience of El Nayaba El Hesbaya in Egypt. El Nayaba El Hesbaya, operating under Law 119/1952, is the administrative and judicial body responsible for overseeing the financial and legal affairs of minors whose father or mother had passed. Hundreds of thousands of mothers in Egypt have (had) children under the guardianship of El Nayaba El Hesbaya. This research delves into the experience of mothers whose children are or were under the guardianship of El Nayaba El Hesbaya, examining how it shape(s/d) their everyday life as women, mothers, widows or ex-wives, citizens, and legal subjects. Centering the experience of the mother with the institution and the social milieux upheld by and upholding of it as my research focus enables me to understand how it unfolds in real time and space and how this structure shapes the daily lives of the families who experience it and is, concomitantly, constantly negotiated by them. Vitally, this research traces the legal and social bases from which El Nayaba El Hesbaya derives authority, critically historicizing and contextualizing the institution and the mothers’ experiences with it. This extensive critique divulges on the legalized systematic instrumentalization of what I conceive as carefare— a critical intervention that allows for the apprehension, interrogation, and dissention of/against violence that is perpetrated and perpetuated as acts of ‘care’— for the manufacture and propagation of consent for violating these mothers, entrenchment of the slow violence of the sexual contract, and (re)production of governable reductive subjectivities.
School
School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Department
Cynthia Nelson Institute for Gender and Women's Studies
Degree Name
MA in Gender & Women's Studies
Graduation Date
Fall 2-15-2026
Submission Date
9-19-2025
First Advisor
Helen Rizzo
Committee Member 1
Martina Rieker
Committee Member 2
Dina Makram Ebeid
Extent
319 p.
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Institutional Review Board (IRB) Approval
Approval has been obtained for this item
Disclosure of AI Use
No use of AI
Recommended Citation
APA Citation
Khayry, H.
(2026).Under the Guardianship: Experiences of Mothers in Egypt’s El Nayaba El Hesbaya [Master's Thesis, the American University in Cairo]. AUC Knowledge Fountain.
https://fount.aucegypt.edu/etds/2634
MLA Citation
Khayry, Hana. Under the Guardianship: Experiences of Mothers in Egypt’s El Nayaba El Hesbaya. 2026. American University in Cairo, Master's Thesis. AUC Knowledge Fountain.
https://fount.aucegypt.edu/etds/2634
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