Shaʿbi music and struggles over 'the popular': class, space and emotion in contemporary Cairo
<p>Shaʿbi music is a contemporary urban style that emerged in late 1960s Cairo, Egypt. Literally meaning ‘popular’ or ‘of the people,’ it is valourised by some as an antithesis to cosmopolitan genres of the elite and criticised by others as an undesirable and backward genre of the uneducated m...
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| Format: | Abschlussarbeit |
| Sprache: | English |
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2022
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| _version_ | 1826310831244050432 |
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| author | Frankford, S |
| author2 | Olszewska, Z |
| author_facet | Olszewska, Z Frankford, S |
| author_sort | Frankford, S |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | <p>Shaʿbi music is a contemporary urban style that emerged in late 1960s Cairo, Egypt. Literally meaning ‘popular’ or ‘of the people,’ it is valourised by some as an antithesis to cosmopolitan genres of the elite and criticised by others as an undesirable and backward genre of the uneducated masses. Its presence is pervasive, constituting a central part of Cairo’s soundscape: it can be heard blasting out of microbuses, taxis and cafes, and is performed live at weddings and nightclubs. This thesis examines contestations over ‘the popular’ in contemporary Cairo through an ethnography of shaʿbi musicians and their music.</p>
<p>Based on 21 months of ethnographic fieldwork with shaʿbi musicians, fans and detractors, including one year spent working as a violinist with several shaʿbi bands, I argue that contestations over shaʿbi music do not just reflect pre-existing class-cultural positions but actively redraw them. In doing so, this thesis contributes to understandings of class formation and expression in the Middle East. Deconstructing materialist Marxist-inspired notions of class, I examine how shaʿbi music’s production and circulation—and the position-taking surrounding it—enables social positions to be negotiated and instantiated.</p>
<p>I pay particular attention to the spatial-material and emotional-affective aspects of shaʿbi music, moving beyond discursive approaches that have recently dominated scholarship on popular culture in the Middle East. Attending to music’s unique spatialising qualities, as well as its ability to make people feel things, I highlight a specific complex of class, space and emotion that shaʿbi music indexes. Finally, while existing scholarship on popular culture in the Middle East makes almost no mention of production conditions, my focus on the labour that goes into music-making reveals the realities of cultural production in a context of political authoritarianism. I challenge existing literature which tends to present Egyptian popular culture in terms of state-sponsored highbrow culture in opposition to lowbrow street culture, instead showing how shaʿbi has shifted on the spectrum of taste and revealing musicians’ contradictory entanglements with state power.</p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T07:59:20Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oxford-uuid:a416b474-b69a-40d1-badb-dbd096191339 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T07:59:20Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:a416b474-b69a-40d1-badb-dbd0961913392023-09-12T16:01:28ZShaʿbi music and struggles over 'the popular': class, space and emotion in contemporary CairoThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:a416b474-b69a-40d1-badb-dbd096191339MusicAnthropologyMiddle Eastern studiesEnglishHyrax Deposit2022Frankford, SOlszewska, ZArmbrust, W<p>Shaʿbi music is a contemporary urban style that emerged in late 1960s Cairo, Egypt. Literally meaning ‘popular’ or ‘of the people,’ it is valourised by some as an antithesis to cosmopolitan genres of the elite and criticised by others as an undesirable and backward genre of the uneducated masses. Its presence is pervasive, constituting a central part of Cairo’s soundscape: it can be heard blasting out of microbuses, taxis and cafes, and is performed live at weddings and nightclubs. This thesis examines contestations over ‘the popular’ in contemporary Cairo through an ethnography of shaʿbi musicians and their music.</p> <p>Based on 21 months of ethnographic fieldwork with shaʿbi musicians, fans and detractors, including one year spent working as a violinist with several shaʿbi bands, I argue that contestations over shaʿbi music do not just reflect pre-existing class-cultural positions but actively redraw them. In doing so, this thesis contributes to understandings of class formation and expression in the Middle East. Deconstructing materialist Marxist-inspired notions of class, I examine how shaʿbi music’s production and circulation—and the position-taking surrounding it—enables social positions to be negotiated and instantiated.</p> <p>I pay particular attention to the spatial-material and emotional-affective aspects of shaʿbi music, moving beyond discursive approaches that have recently dominated scholarship on popular culture in the Middle East. Attending to music’s unique spatialising qualities, as well as its ability to make people feel things, I highlight a specific complex of class, space and emotion that shaʿbi music indexes. Finally, while existing scholarship on popular culture in the Middle East makes almost no mention of production conditions, my focus on the labour that goes into music-making reveals the realities of cultural production in a context of political authoritarianism. I challenge existing literature which tends to present Egyptian popular culture in terms of state-sponsored highbrow culture in opposition to lowbrow street culture, instead showing how shaʿbi has shifted on the spectrum of taste and revealing musicians’ contradictory entanglements with state power.</p> |
| spellingShingle | Music Anthropology Middle Eastern studies Frankford, S Shaʿbi music and struggles over 'the popular': class, space and emotion in contemporary Cairo |
| title | Shaʿbi music and struggles over 'the popular': class, space and emotion in contemporary Cairo |
| title_full | Shaʿbi music and struggles over 'the popular': class, space and emotion in contemporary Cairo |
| title_fullStr | Shaʿbi music and struggles over 'the popular': class, space and emotion in contemporary Cairo |
| title_full_unstemmed | Shaʿbi music and struggles over 'the popular': class, space and emotion in contemporary Cairo |
| title_short | Shaʿbi music and struggles over 'the popular': class, space and emotion in contemporary Cairo |
| title_sort | shaʿbi music and struggles over the popular class space and emotion in contemporary cairo |
| topic | Music Anthropology Middle Eastern studies |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT frankfords shaʿbimusicandstrugglesoverthepopularclassspaceandemotionincontemporarycairo |