Convocation: Lila Abu-Lughod '74

Lila Abu-Lughod '74 is a distinguished Palestinian-American anthropologist and one of the most respected scholars of Middle East Studies. Her work gives evidence to the value of critical intellectual engagement, grounded in a basic trust in our common humanity—a humanity without borders. But what happens when the village in Egypt in which she has been studying gender, media, and modernity is swept up in a national revolution? Media coverage of the uprising in Egypt in 2011 focused almost exclusively on Tahrir Square in Cairo, yet the revolution was also lived in other parts of Egypt, including the countryside. Abu-Lughod offers a glimpse of what happened in one village in Upper Egypt where, as elsewhere, daily lives were deeply shaped by devastating national economic and social policies, the arbitrary power of police and security forces, and a sense of profound marginalization and disadvantage. Youth were galvanized to solve local problems in their own community, feeling themselves to be in a national space despite a history of marginalization. They also used a particular language for their activism: a strong language of social morality, not the media-friendly political language of “rights” and “democracy.”  The title of her presentation was "Taking Back the Village: Egyptian Youth in Revolution."