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Yasmine Moataz Ahmed is a Ph.D. student in social anthropology at the University of Cambridge. Her research is on citizenship practices in Fayoum, Egypt. Specifically, she is examining how rural subjects conceptualize and claim their rights from the “state” amid both rapid political transformations and debates on military/civil and religious/secular rule.
In early 2012, Hagg Hassan had a complaint. A resident of the village of Ab’adeyet Wally Mizar in Fayoum, 65 miles southwest of Cairo, Hagg Hassan had been receiving a monthly pension of 300 Egyptian pounds. But one day, he was given only 250. Hagg Hassan was livid. The budget cut would also apply to his wife and widowed daughter—a loss of 150 pounds for the household. Hagg Hassan lit a cigarette and asked his daughter to write a petition.
