The Muslim Brothers in Society: Everyday Politics, Social Action, and Islamism in Mubarak's Egypt

by Marie Vannetzel, David Tresilian (Translator)

Overview

A groundbreaking ethnography of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood

The Islamists’ political rise in Arab countries has often been explained by their capacity to provide social services, representing a challenge to the legitimacy of neoliberal states. Few studies, however, have addressed how this social action was provided, and how it engendered popular political support for Islamist organizations. Most of the time the links between social services and Islamist groups have been taken as given, rather than empirically examined, with studies of specific Islamist organizations tending to focus on their internal patterns of sectarian mobilization and the ideological indoctrination of committed members. Taking the case of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (MB), this book offers a groundbreaking ethnography of Islamist everyday politics and social action in three districts of Greater Cairo.

Based on long-term fieldwork among grassroots networks and on interviews with MB deputies, members, and beneficiaries, it shows how the MB operated on a day-to-day basis in society, through social brokering, constituent relations, and popular outreach. How did ordinary MB members concretely relate to local populations in the neighborhoods where they lived? What kinds of social services did they deliver? How did they experience belonging to the Brotherhood and how this membership fit in with their other social identities? Finally, what political effects did their social action entail, both in terms of popular support and of contestation or cooperation with the state?

Nuanced, theoretically eclectic, and empirically rich, The Muslim Brothers in Society reveals the fragile balances on which the Muslim Brotherhood’s political and social action was based and shows how these balances were disrupted after the January 2011 uprising. It provides an alternative way of understanding their historical failure in 2013.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781649030238
Publisher:	American University in Cairo Press, The
Publication date:	12/22/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	312
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Marie Vannetzel is a CNRS fellow at the Center for Economic, Legal and Social Studies (CEDEJ) in Cairo, and currently a visiting teacher at the University of Cairo, Faculty of Economics and Political Science (FESP). She received her PhD with distinction from Sciences Po Paris in 2012. Through an interdisciplinary approach combining political science, sociology and anthropology, she has been studying Egypt through the past fifteen years. Her research interest focuses on the politics of social action and redistribution.
David Tresilian is a professor of Comparative Literature and English at The American University of Paris. He is the author of A Brief Introduction to Modern Arabic Literature, and he writes regularly for Al-Ahram Weekly.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Encountering the Brothers
1. (In)formal Politics
2. Mobilizing Disinterestedness
3. Banned MPs
4. The ‘Politics of Goodness’
5. The Double-edged Sword of Brotherhood
6. Goodness in Dire Straits
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"[P]rovides insights that even specialists and longtime observers of Egyptian politics will appreciate. . . . The Muslim Brothers in Society is a groundbreaking examination of how the Muslim Brotherhood created, inhabited, and expanded existing networks of social capital and neighbourhood relations to be seen by the residents as 'virtuous neighbors.'"—Middle East Journal

"Ground-breaking . . . seminal reading for anyone interested in the Brotherhood and also for those looking to understand the complicated balance between Islamist groups’ politicization and their social networks on the ground."—International Journal of Middle East Studies

"Drawing on several years of ethnographic fieldwork, Marie Vannetzel takes us into the streets of Mubarak-era Cairo to explain how the Muslim Brotherhood was able to build popular support in a context of semi-legality and how this support was lost in the aftermath of the 25 January Egyptian Revolution. Thoroughly evidenced and elegantly crafted, Vannetzel’s acute analysis of the day-to-day workings of Brotherhood MPs and activists provides fresh and important new insights into the rise and fall of the movement. A rich and impressive book."—Neil Ketchley, author of Egypt in a Time of Revolution

"This is a highly insightful study that is conducted with rigor and written with flair. It shows ethnographic research at its best by offering a new analysis of a deeply controversial topic and political organization. The book offers intricate social and political analysis to shed new light on the overlooked relationship between civic and religious identity in Muslim-populated countries."—Rana Jawad, University of Bath

"Vannetzel delves deeply into the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood to show how the organization maneuvered as an illegal but tolerated organization in Mubarak’s Egypt. Rather than operating in a 'parallel Islamic sector,' she argues, the group occupied an ambiguous space in which it was at once socially embedded and not clearly identifiable, all while maintaining a tight internal organizational structure. Her meticulous ethnographic research underscores how the organization’s political success in the years leading up to the 2011 uprising lay in its depoliticization and its efforts to distinguish itself and its members as more ethical than their competitors."—Melani Cammett, Harvard University

"A masterpiece of meticulous scholarship throughout"—Midwest Book Review

From the Publisher