FROM MARGINALISATION TO INJUSTICE, FROM INJUSTICE TO REVOLT: URBANITY AND CITIZENSHIP AT THE MARGINS

Abstract

There has been a dramatic rise in the number of social uprisings in Egypt since 2000. While these uprisings have often been repressed, they have contributed to the emergence of debates about the rights to work and to housing, and more generally about social justice, an issue which became one of the watchwords of the revolution of January 2011. The aim of this article is to analyze the movement of the rag-pickers of Cairo, who since 2003 have been opposing the neoliberal reform of the waste-management system which has deprived them of their work. Since then, this socially and spatially marginalized professional corporation has taken front stage and contributed to the construction of a “public problem” about waste.