Paper short abstract:

In this paper, I explore national belonging and the mechanisms of distinctions that the belonging requires in the post-2011 revolution Egypt among the agents of Egyptian high culture.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I explore national belonging and the mechanisms of distinctions that the belonging requires in the post-2011 revolution Egypt among the agents of Egyptian high culture. A particular focus is on the ruling period of the Muslim Brotherhood and president Mohammed Morsi 2012, when the cultural actors expressed their accumulated antagonism towards the Muslim Brotherhood. During that period the idea of Egyptian nation became evident through frequent calls and outwardly expressed longings for "the lost Egyptian identity" and "Egyptian cultural heritage". In light of my ethnographic fieldwork from that same period, I discuss how the milieu of high culture responded to the political changes and defended their established positions. To demonstrate the exclusionary idea of the nation, I examine how the broader field of Egyptian cultural actors contrasted their own imaginary of Egypt - based on their understanding of tolerance and diversity, with the "other" imaginary of Egypt -based on intolerance and lack of diversity. The other imaginary was imposed on the Muslim Brotherhood and its wider considered-ignorant constituency. Moreover, while focusing on one of the state's major cultural institution, I analyze the cultural actors appropriation of civilizational discourses.