Read, “Cairo as a Neoliberal Capital: From Walled City to Gated Community” by Eric Denis from Cairo Cosmopolitan.
Here’s the link:
http://datacenter2.aucegypt.edu/bgironda/rhet201/Gatedcommunities.pdf
Be prepared to discuss in class: the argument that Denis is making, the evidence he uses, the strengths and weaknesses of his argument, possible counterarguments and how you see it as related to Cairo today.
Discussion Questions:
1. How is “risk” defined in the article and how is this concept important to the argument of the article?
2. What roles does Denis say that Gated Communities play in the political and social life of Cairo?
3. What is the relationship between these communities and democracy, according to this article?
4. According to Denis, who benefits from the gated communities and how—(name all the groups who benefit and describe how they benefit)?
5. What does he mean when he says that economic liberalization is accompanied by political deliberalization? (p 60-61)
6.What else besides “evasion of risk” is said to motivate the move to desert gated communities?
7. Describe how the ideas about what the periphery of the city was for (after the 1952 revolution) changes in the last few decades with the development of gated communities. What are some of the positive narratives associated with desert development and desert living?
8. In what ways does Denis say that the discourse of “Ecology” was used in Cairo towards “the maintanance of an authoritarian regime” ?
9. While, Denis says, gated communities are designed, in part, to shelter those who live in them from the “risks” of the city, how does he say they actually also contribute to increasing those risks?
