Paper short abstract:

Faith in complex mechanical technologies and vast engineering works is a recurrent feature of Egyptian State modernism. How has the ‘engineering mystique’ shaped the way infrastructures are conceived and deployed, for both developmental and political ends?

Paper long abstract:

Egypt's 'engineering mystique', it is argued, can be discerned in the social prestige of engineers and their imagined role in creating the modern state, as well as in narratives of development and modernity manifest in projects such as the Aswan High Dam, the nationalization of the Suez Canal, the launch of the first 'Arab' television satellite, the construction of the Cairo Metro, or the opening of the recent bi-lane Suez Canal. These point to a faith in complex mechanical technologies and vast engineering works as a way of projecting national grandeur and 'modernity', a fascination with the power of technology to improve and remake society, and an ideology in which a 'high tech' notion of infrastructure predominates. This paper seeks to explore this infrastructural imaginary, including its recurrence as a political tool for consolidating and legitimizing power, from the High Dam under Nasser to the bi-lane Suez Canal under the new president, Sisi. I ask: what counts as an infrastructure within the framework of Egyptian state modernism and what purposes (political, symbolic…) do such infrastructures serve, other than just generating electricity, allowing for transport, or facilitating communications.