Samar Saadany

Markets of Dispossession – A Reflection

Disempowering under Empowerment Claims
On a Facebook group dedicated to the residents of “South Academy District” of New Cairo City,
a district with a relatively-high land price than the rest of New Cairo, a post was published about
the evacuation of “villas supermarkets”, those are informal supermarkets that sells basic goods
opened by gate guards “Bawabeen” inside villas that are under construction to serve other gate
guards, construction workers, domestic workers and sometimes residents themselves. The post
was celebrated by many of the group members with a constant praise to the post publisher,
who turned out to be a governmental officer at the “New Urban Communities Authority”, a
government authority affiliated with the Ministry of Housing. The post with accompanied with
pictures for the informal supermarkets featuring places that are very similar in their basic design
to regular supermarkets (i.e. shelves with basic good like canned dairy products, boxes on the
ground containing vegetables and fruits, etc.). Being a resident of New Cairo City, and working
near “South Academy “district, I was familiar with those small supermarkets and few times a
customer for them. They ranged from a tiny space selling cigarettes and snacks for college
students to large spaces full of goods. Most of them were covered and non-visible except for a
careful eye. I couldn’t understand why some of this group members insisted on and propagated
for the removal of those spaces which I know serves many of them. I have seen previous posts
on the same group condemning street vendors, “foul” carts, and carts of fruit sellers wandering
the streets of the new city to sell their goods of threatening the “image” of New Cairo. But those
spaces were literally invisible and they would disappear once those villas are inhibited!

It seemed to me that what was threatening for residents of the new city is their environment
would be “infected” by those “informal” “irregular” “poor” “Others” if we borrowed Mary
Douglas’s theme of purity and Danger. They don’t mind buying goods for double or triple their
prices as long as those goods are introduced to them in a “neat”, “clean” and “formal” space.
They wouldn’t care also for how would other population serving their existence such as
construction workers, their personal driver or their domestic maid would find means to secure
food for themselves. In her conclusion, Julia Alyachar argues that neoliberal markets introduced
themselves as “the market” excluding and neglecting other forms of markets preceding them.
She also argues that “the poor” could find ways to adjust to those markets in an unexpected
way. It looks like that those gate guards could find ways to maneuver the practices of the state
and the neoliberal markets such as bribing the government official who acts with two roles,
finding other places unknown to those officials and getting support from their own customers
(i.e. university students, construction workers and even residents themselves). Two buildings
away from our house, a man and his wife are putting a table with cigarettes, tea packets and
candies and on the side of the table are few boxes of low-priced snacks. This small table serves
higher institute students nearby; young adults prefer to buy from this man because he doesn’t
add margins to his goods as small shops inside the institute itself. Few months ago, the man
disappeared for a while, but then he reappeared again with his same exact small table.
Samar Saadany

A friend of mine was talking with me about a Gam3ia he is participating to buy himself a scooter
(a small motorcycle) and that his mother is managing for him (i.e. responsible for taking money
from him and handling communication with the main Gam3ia manager). In Gamiaas, order of
gets money is usually unknown; this is a regular tradition to avoid pressure from other
participants on the person who’s turn to receive the money to exchange turns. In my friend’s
case, one woman knew my friend’s mother order. In a visit for my friend to his mother, the
woman passed by his mother because she knew my friend’s mother’s turn is first. The two
women negotiated on which one should take her money first explaining their circumstances to
each other. My friend’s mother is participating with three “names” (for her two sons and one
daughter) and the other woman was participating with more than one “name” to help her
daughter who is getting married. I know of a whole system of Gamiaat run by mothers to help
their children in their daily living, either for apartments installments, vehicles purchase,
marriage costs, or even travelling. Neo-liberalism is disempowering the poor under claims of
empowerment, but those women are empowering their children a very strict regulated and
efficient informal economic system.

Reflected Identities of Neo-liberalism

In her introduction, Elyachar quotes a speaker from Social Fund “You young entrepreneurs are
not just craftsmen who make a piece of something and that’s it. You are small business men:
you need to learn administration, marketing, how to run a business. You have to be prepared for
GATT, when the trade barriers of Egypt will come down.” I would like to reflect here on the
concept of identity from Gecas and Calleor’s pieces.