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Studies of youth in Arab societies have tended to posit and explore their social exclusion, marginalization and even de-politicization. Events sparked by the January 25 uprising in Egypt have reconstructed youth in a contradictory light, hailing them as new symbols of the nation. Careful consideration of current thinking in the anthropology of kinship and the nation, however, cautions the audience of the revolution to think twice. Taking for granted the ‘blurred boundaries’ between kinship and the nation, this paper suggests that the transformation from ‘totalizing and patricentric rule’ in Egypt evokes the symbolism of kinship and its wider metaphorical uses, manipulations and transformations. It uses kinship to re-examine the role of youth in the Egypt revolution, on the one hand, and the end of Hosni Mubarak's totalizing and patricentric regime, on the other. Firstly, it shows how a discursive concern with youth's place in the revolution is simultaneously and more strongly a concern with kinship. It then sheds light on the kinship idiom that has defined the Egyptian nation since its birth to its ‘demubarakization’. Finally, it shows how kinship and nation are mutually susceptible to manipulations and transformations in the aftermath of the revolution. The paper concludes by noting the relevance of kinship to contemporary political events.

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In the post-September 11 era, the state in Saudi Arabia is said to be feminizing itself by promoting inclusive reform vis-à-vis women. Since King ʿAbdallah’s reign, and through Prince Muḥammad bin Salmān’s recent and ambitious roadmap of socio-economic reforms, the monarchy has been championing women’s causes. This article seeks to move beyond a state-centric approach that focuses on the role of the Saudi state, actors and institutions. Rather, it takes an ethnographic view point to explore how the state’s feminization of itself unfolds in the everyday encounters and interactions between women divorcées and the processes, offices and officials of the state in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Simply by engaging the state and continually re-interpreting what it might offer them in terms of rights and resources, divorcées are able to draw new boundaries around their private lives. Consequently, it matters not so much that state actors and institutions espouse women’s positions in various realms, but rather that this so-called feminization enables women to act upon, interpret and imagine differently family and sexual life, and crucially, ways of being with and for others.