From the pyramids to pyramids road: An ethnography of the idea of Egypt

Western tourism and Gulf tourism in Cairo are grounded in very different cultural imaginations about Egypt as a people, culture, history, and state. Western tourism in Cairo is grounded in a Western vision of Egypt as the remains of a great, ancient pharaonic civilization. Arab tourists in Egypt, on the other hand, ignore pharaonic remains and engage with a completely different imagination of Egypt, one that is grounded in a shared popular culture and political economy. Based on 2-1/2 years of fieldwork in Greater Cairo, this dissertation tracks several intersecting arenas where the idea of Egypt is continually constructed: archaeology, tourism, and cultural performance.; I begin by examining how Western imaginations of Egypt are rooted in a history of colonial conquests. Both orthodox Egyptology and mystical "New Age" constructions of ancient Egypt thrive on myths of swashbuckling adventurers on a treasure hunt, myths that date back to the days of European colonialism. This colonial past resonates in the contemporary politics of Egyptology and Egyptian nationalism.; The dissertation then turns to tourist hustlers in Cairo's tourist bazaar, revealing the complex ways that tourism is gendered. It shows how, when bargaining, bazaar merchants subversively exploit a tourist imagination of Egyptians as backward and ignorant.; I then examine encounters between Gulf tourists and Egyptians to compare the images that each constructs of the other. Egyptians nurture stereotypes of Gulf Arabs as sexual predators, while Saudis see Egyptians as obsequious economic mercenaries. Linguistic and cultural differences between the groups get mapped out on a regional economy marked by labor migration and extreme differences of wealth.; Finally the dissertation examines the phenomenon of foreign (Western or Japanese, non-Egyptian) bellydancers in Egypt. Contemporary bellydancing is a product of a long history of transnational encounters centering around an fantasy of Oriental dance, which has created new definitions of "traditional" cultural forms.; The tourist economy in Egypt illuminates the creative projects of cultural production that occur at moments of cross-cultural encounters such as when travelers meet. This study examines how public identities are constructed through processes at once mimetic and oppositional in encounters with cultural others.