Scraping the surface: the techno-politics of modern streets in turn-of-twentieth-century Alexandria

Barak, On

doi:10.1080/09518960903488048

Cited by 23 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…Hanan Hammad examined the creation of a heteronormative industrial subjectivity by the state and factory owners in the 20 th century (Hammad, 2016). Finally, On Barak examined the impact of modern European communication technologies (imported by the state) on the time of the Egyptian to make it subjected to the European standardisation and precision (Barak, 2013;Barak, 2009). Also, resistance to these notions had been examined (Fahmy, 2002a;Hammad, 2016;Barak, 2013).…”

Section: Table Of Contentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Tarrying with the Leviathan: body and temporality in modern Egypt

Mikhail¹

2019

Preprint

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This dissertation will answer what is the impact of modern state institutions (medicine, factory and communication technology) on the construction of the Egyptian body and time and how did the Egyptians react to these efforts? This dissertation argues that the Egyptian state aimed to produce docile subjectivities for the sake of efficiency through three institutions: the first is medicine which produced a healthy desexualised Egyptian body, made reproduction its main purpose and controlled the Egyptians’ intimate time; the second is the factory which controlled the behaviour of body and disciplined the Egyptians’ time (initiated by Muhammad Ali and continued later by Egyptian capitalism with the support of the state); the third is modern transportation (e.g. railroads) which standardised the time of the Egyptians and regulated their movement in space. But, by using everyday acts of quiet assertiveness, Egyptians tried to regain control over their own bodies and tarried the monotonous time.

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Section: Table Of Contentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The legal speed limit for automobiles was 15 kph (Barak, 2013). The law also stressed that the car must slowdown in narrow or crowded spaces for safety (Barak, 2009). Although the car allows more freedom than the train, still, it is not free as the donkey.…”

Section: The Body and Its Temporal Discontents: The Death Of The Donkeymentioning

confidence: 99%

Tarrying with the Leviathan: body and temporality in modern Egypt

Mikhail¹

2019

Preprint

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“…But infrastructure, of course, mediates time as much as it mediates space (Degani 2013;Hetherington 2014). Infrastructures configure time, enable certain kinds of social time while disabling others, and make some temporalities pos si ble while foreclosing alternatives (Barak 2013).…”

Section: Time and Temporalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thinking of time-space compression and just-in-time production through infrastructure paradoxically draws attention to the slowness of the pro cess of speeding up. For example, it draws our attention to the re sis tance pres ent in telegraph or fiberoptic cablesthe difficulties involved in financing them, and then in installing and repairing them (Barak 2009;Starosielski 2015). Rigorous attention to infrastructure itself actually slows time-space compression enough to see delay, accretion, suspension, repair, re sis tance, and repurposing.…”

Section: Time and Temporalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Palestine, as Stephen Graham (2002), Eyal Weizman (2012), and others have shown, is a zone of infrastructural warfare, where water tanks, electricity transformers, roads, electronic communications, radio transmitters, and airport runways are often targets. And as the quote from Fanon with which we open this introduction suggests, the experience of infrastructure has long been an affective and embodied distinction between the settlers' town and the town belonging to the colonized people (see also Mrázek 2002;Barak 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Promise of Infrastructure

2018

544

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about sar advanced seminar titles Since 1970 the School for Advanced Research (formerly the School of American Research) has published over one hundred volumes in the Advanced Seminar series. These volumes arise from seminars held on sar's Santa Fe campus that bring together small groups of experts to explore a single issue. Participants assess recent innovations in theory and methods, appraise ongoing research, and share data relevant to prob lems of significance in anthropology and related disciplines. The resulting volumes reflect sar's commitment to the development of new ideas and to scholarship of the highest caliber. The complete Advanced Seminar series can be found at www . sarweb . org. duke university press durham and london 2018

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Buckets, bollards and bombs: towards subject histories of technologies and terrors

Fridlund¹

2011

History and Technology

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This article provides a theoretical and empirical contribution to the political history of technology by articulating a new conceptual perspective on the power of technological things and through outlining a history of modern urban technological terror and terrorism. It introduces a user-centered perspective on technological politics in the form of 'subject histories of technology' which, contrasting with prevalent 'object histories of technology' on technological inventions and innovators, emphasize the self-fashioning power of technological artifacts. Through an overview history of technology of 'terrormindedness' covering the three subsequent waves of urban terror arising from aerial bombardment, nuclear weapons and substate terrorism it shows how technologies have been used by individual citizens to cope with the experience of man-made fear and insecurity. In conclusion it argues that the political history of technology should to the focus on community politics and system politics of big institutional technologies add an attention to the personal politics of the emotional and material power of small technical things.Keywords: technology of terrorism; technology in use; history of emotions; subjectivity; politics of technology; history of terrorism They were aiming for the towers. From across the sea they had come, a handful of civilians with their new missiles to wage war against the mighty military power. By attacking its greatest city and its towering symbols of pride and of power over men, they hoped to break the morale of the city and the nation and to force their humiliation. Their aim was true. Through the September sky the missile flew piercing the high tower that soon was burning. It was beyond the firemen's ability to save it and the tower, once among the highest in the world, fell down and was no more. Screams of terror and panic rose up from the citizens while shouts of glee and jubilation greeted it from their watching enemies. Urban terror, more advanced than ever before, had entered the world. Its impact was going to shape the city and the nation, and change the political map of the world.This event in the history of technology of terror was 'The Bombardment of Copenhagen,' inflicted by British troops, 2-5 September 1807, and which has been described as a precursor of the urban terror attacks of 11 September 2001. The immediate cause of the Bombardment was British fears during the Napoleonic wars that Denmark would support France. To thwart that possibility, the British told the Danes to give up their mighty navy as security for the country's continued neutrality. When Denmark refused, the British besieged Copenhagen. During three nights they bombarded the city with thousands of bombs and rockets, leading to its surrender and the loss of the Danish navy to the British.

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Scraping the surface: the techno-politics of modern streets in turn-of-twentieth-century Alexandria

Cited by 23 publications

References 18 publications

Tarrying with the Leviathan: body and temporality in modern Egypt

Tarrying with the Leviathan: body and temporality in modern Egypt

The Promise of Infrastructure

Buckets, bollards and bombs: towards subject histories of technologies and terrors

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