Space and Everyday Life in Cairo's City of the Dead

ARAB ACADEMY FOR SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND MARITIME TRANSPORT College of Engineering and Technology: Department of Architectural Engineering and Environmental Design, Cairo Campus

SPACE AND EVERYDAY LIFE IN CAIRO’S CITY OF THE DEAD By:

Reem Alaa El Din Mohamed Sobhy

A Thesis Submitted to AASTMT in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award of the Degree of:

MASTER OF SCIENCE in ARCHITECTURAL ENGINEERING & ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN

Supervised by: Dr. Sherif El-Fiki

Dr. Ahmed El Antably

Professor of Architecture

Associate Professor of Architecture

Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport

Cairo 2019

Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport

Cairo

DECLARATION I certify that all the material in this thesis that is not my own work has been identified, and that no material is included for which a degree has previously been conferred on me.

The contents of this thesis reflect my own personal views, and are not necessarily endorsed by the University.

Signature: Date:

03/11/2019

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APPROVAL OF EXAMINING COMMITTEE We certify that we have read the present work and that in our opinion it is fully adequate in scope and quality as thesis towards the partial fulfillment of the Master Degree requirements in Specialization: Architectural Engineering and Environmental Design From: College of Engineering and Technology (AASTMT) Date :

Supervisors: Name: Position:

Dr. Sherif El-Fiki Professor of Architecture Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport, Cairo

Signature: Name: Position:

Dr. Ahmed El Antably Associate Professor of Architecture Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport, Cairo

Signature:

Examiners: Name:

Dr. Dalila el Kerdany Professor of Architecture

Position: Cairo University Signature: Name: Position:

Dr. Yasser Moustafa Associate Professor of Architecture Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport, Cairo

Signature:

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Acknowledgment I am grateful to Allah for showering me with blessings that made me capable of finishing this dissertation. Amongst those blessing are many people put on my way. First, my advisors, you were the backbone of this study. Dr. Sherif El-Fiki; it is not only about your contribution to this dissertation, you have contributed to everything that has to do with my academic profile.

You have been an advisor and a huge supporter. Thank you for your valuable contribution through all the research phases. Dr. Ahmed El Antably; you have given a lot of time and attention to my work and your feedback always made a positive step forward.

I am grateful to my parents Alaa El-Din and Faten Qassem, and my siblings Abdulrahman, Nada and Ali. You have showered me with all what I wish for from love, encouragement, support or motivation. I owe you all what I am and all what I do.

My beautiful husband Abdulmalik Abdulmawla; you tolerated a lot of tears and sleepless nights. You listened and listened and gave me beautiful insights. You made it so much lighter on me.

My friends who shared my load and made it easier; thank you my partner: Mahy El Gohary.

My mini 408: Salma Ghanem and Sarah Samir. The best supporters: Maya El Nesr, Hala Hossam, Mai Aboul Dahab, Rana Swelam, and Marina Atef. My childhood besties: Amena Hossam, and Alaa Abbas. And thanks Ahmad Salah for accompanying me to the field.

I am thankful to my examiners for the time and effort to read and give me inspiring comments that definitely contributed to this study. Dr. Yasser Moustafa, you inspire me on so many levels and you have influenced a lot of work; and not only this research. Dr. Dalila ElKerdany; it was a pleasure meeting you and listening to your insightful comments.

‫يب‬ َ ۚ ِ‫َو َما ت َ ْوفِي ِقي إِ اَّل ِبا اَّلل‬ ُ ِ‫علَ ْي ِه ت َ َو اك ْلتُ َوإِلَ ْي ِه أُن‬

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Abstract This research investigates the problematic of representing the everyday in architecture. It aims to explore and interpret the negotiation between space and everyday life.

In this

context, dwelling in the historical cemeteries of Cairo named as Cairo’s City of the Dead sets a relevant site for the exploration of the negotiation between both. It raises questions that aim to understand the dynamics of the appropriation that happens to the spaces of the City of the Dead because of the everyday activities, and at the same time, understand the agency of the space in affecting the everyday living. In order to answer those questions, it employed a qualitative research strategy comprised of three phases. The first phase was the theoretical understanding of that negotiation, highly based on the work of Henri Lefebvre and Bruno Latour, that worked as an interpretive lens. The second phase was the fieldwork conducted at the Eastern Cemetery of Cairo. For data collection, it relied on unstructured interviews, and for a lesser degree, observations. The last phase was the critical review of the existing literature about the phenomenon of inhabiting the cemeteries in Cairo. Comparing the findings of this research with the existing body of literature shows the polarity in which the City of the Dead is presented. The research argues that space, in this context, holds multiple meanings for its users and should be investigated in different ways for their further understanding. It also argues that space has agency in shaping the everyday experience of the inhabitants. On the other side, their everyday practices challenge architectural dichotomies taken for granted.

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Table of Contents Acknowledgment ................................................................................................................... IV Abstract .................................................................................................................................... V Table of Contents .................................................................................................................. VI List of Figures ....................................................................................................................... VII 1

2

3

Chapter One: Introduction ............................................................................................. 1 1.1

Research Overview ..................................................................................................... 2

1.2

Research Strategy ........................................................................................................ 4

1.3

Thesis Narrative .......................................................................................................... 5

Chapter Two: Informing Theory .................................................................................. 8 2.1

What the Everyday Is/Is Not ....................................................................................... 9

2.2

Spaces of the Everyday ............................................................................................. 11

2.3

Spatial Agency in the Everyday ................................................................................ 16

2.4

From Theory to Field ................................................................................................ 18

Chapter Three: Fieldwork Design ............................................................................... 20 3.1

Overview of the City of the Dead ............................................................................. 21

3.2

Specific Setting Description ...................................................................................... 23

3.3

Fieldwork Design and Feasibility ............................................................................. 32

3.4

Researcher’s Standpoint ............................................................................................ 34

3.5

Data Collection Methods ........................................................................................... 35

3.5.1

Interviews ........................................................................................................... 35

3.5.2

Observations ...................................................................................................... 36

3.6 4

Data Documentation and Analysis ............................................................................ 37

Chapter Four: The Everyday Spaces of the Eastern Cemetery ............................... 39 4.1

Themes ...................................................................................................................... 40

4.1.1

Invisibility .......................................................................................................... 41

4.1.1.1

Normalization of Death .............................................................................. 41

4.1.1.1

Invisible Life Traces ................................................................................... 44

4.1.1

Sense of Home ................................................................................................... 46

4.1.1.1

Extended Sense of Home ............................................................................ 46 [VI]

4.1.1.2 4.2

5

6

Work As Home ........................................................................................... 52

Reflections on the Concluded Themes; Properties of the Spaces of the Everyday... 55 4.2.1.1

Multiple Meanings of Space and its Constant Change ............................... 55

4.2.1.2

Agency of Spatial Elements ....................................................................... 56

4.2.1.3

Blurring Spatial Dichotomies ..................................................................... 57

Chapter Five: Social Dichotomies ................................................................................ 59 5.1.1

Death and Life.................................................................................................... 60

5.1.2

Acceptable and Non-Acceptable........................................................................ 63

Chapter Six: Conclusion, Limitations and Further Questions .................................. 70 6.1

Concluding Summary................................................................................................ 71

6.2

Limitations and Further Questions ............................................................................ 74

7

References ....................................................................................................................... 77

8

Appendix A ..................................................................................................................... 82

9

Appendix B ..................................................................................................................... 83

List of Figures Figure 1.1: Research Phases. ..................................................................................................... 4 Figure 1.2: Thesis Structure. ...................................................................................................... 6 Figure 2.1: Synthesis Of The Discussed Theoretical Ideas ..................................................... 19 Figure 3.1: Geographical Location of The City of the Dead ................................................... 22 Figure 3.2: The Eastern Cemetery Subdivisions……………………………………………..24 Figure 3.3: Monuments in-between the Buildings. .................................................................. 25 Figure 3.4: Walled Plots that Make Up Most of the Cemetery Areas. .................................... 26 Figure 3.5: Examples of Pure Funeral Spaces with No Shelter. .............................................. 26 Figure 3.6: Examples Of More Conventional Constructions Around The Tombs With Different Uses. ......................................................................................................................... 27 Figure 3.7: Hybrid Spaces, Tombs That Accommodate The Dead And The Living. ............. 27 Figure 3.8: An Inhabited Tomb Example. ............................................................................... 28 Figure 3.9: One Example Outlining The Use Of An Inhabited Tomb..................................... 29 Figure 3.10: Monuments And Tombs In The Center Of The Eastern Cemetery. .................... 31 Figure 3.11: An Interior And Exterior View Of A Mausoleum Showing The Physical Degradation Of Monuments. ................................................................................................... 31 Figure 3.12: Example of Interview Documentation. ............................................................... 38 Figure 4.1: Extracted Thematic Meanings. .............................................................................. 40 [VII]

Figure 4.2: A Bed Next To A Gravestone. .............................................................................. 41 Figure 4.3: A Woman Cooking Beside The Gravestone And May Be Using It. ..................... 42 Figure 4.4: Princess Shwikar Shrine That Was Referred To As A Notable Dead Neighbor. . 43 Figure 4.5: An Edited Photograph Trying To Visualize The Engagement In The Alleyway Between The Tombs. ............................................................................................................... 44 Figure 4.6: Views From Above And Down At The Quiet Street. ........................................... 44 Figure 4.7: Appropriation Of The Interior Of A Tomb By Mosaics And Wallpaper. ............. 45 Figure 4.8: A Man Sleeping In The Frontage Of A Tomb Amongst Gravestones. ................. 47 Figure 4.9: A Courtyard As A Living Space. .......................................................................... 48 Figure 4.10: A Planted Courtyard Hosting Some Domestic Activities. .................................. 48 Figure 4.11: The Indoor As A Gateway To The Outdoor........................................................ 49 Figure 4.12: The Boundary As Determined By The Access Of A Car. ................................... 50 Figure 4.13: Typically, Windows Are Closed. ........................................................................ 50 Figure 4.14: Entry To An Alleyway Marked By Clothes. ....................................................... 51 Figure 4.15: Two Examples Of Male Coffeehouses In A Public Street. ................................. 51 Figure 4.16: Female Outlet Example. ...................................................................................... 53 Figure 4.17: The Spinning Yarn Wheel In The Alleyways. .................................................... 54 Figure 4.18: An Illustrative Section Showing Activities And Space In An Inhabited Tomb. . 58 Figure 5.1: A Magazine Article In 2001 Producing A Negative Perception Of The Cemeteries .................................................................................................................................................. 62 Figure 5.2: Cairo's 2050 Plan, Removal Of The Cemeteries ................................................... 67

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1

Chapter One: Introduction

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Chapter One: Introduction 1.1

Research Overview . . . The very real difficulties of authentically representing the city of everyday life . . . for as meanings are formed through experience and are shared in the small talk of everyday life. But this talk carries little weight with planners and engineers (Friedmann 1999, 8).

John Friedmann’s previous claim refers to the importance of architects trying to understand everyday life for that it carries of many meanings. Adding to this, Dell Upton thinks that the study of the everyday forces architects to acknowledge themselves as part of the world, and not explorers from a more civilized society waiting to “survey, catalogue, and analyze” the vernacular and traditional architecture (Upton 2002, 710-711).

In this context, the present research aims at exploring the negotiation between everyday life practices and architectural space. Trying to understand and represent architecture of the everyday, tools of architectural representation like: maps, plans, sections, and photographs may work. However in this study, I added narratives of different accounts to those tools in an attempt to add a different layer of talking about space. The research stages space and the everyday practices occurring at the paradoxical phenomenon of inhabiting the cemeteries in Cairo, Egypt.

I saw dwelling in the cemeteries a relevant site for exploration of the negotiation between everyday life practices and architectural space for two reasons. The first reason is that the condition of death as being an unavoidable part of life should make it a concern to architecture; as cemeteries play an essential role in the narrative of spaces (Loren-Mendez and Quesada-Acre 2017, 49). And, actually, Egypt has always had a relationship with death; from its pharaonic tombs to its inhabited ones (Ansah 2010, 10). The historical cemeteries of Cairo are permanently inhabited. For Martin Heidegger, the act of “dwelling” reflects one’s understanding of his/her position in the world; this act sums the relationship between one and space (Heidegger 1971, 159).

In addition, since the production of spaces involves “acts”, or “operations” through time, then the use of space is not passive (De Certeau 2008, 35-45; Lozanovska 2003, 141; Abdelmonem 2012, 35-36). Narratives coming from dwellers that describe their processes of dwelling in the context of a space for the dead, I suggest, add a different way of talking about unplanned architecture.

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The second reason is, cemeteries are paradoxical spaces: as death has the power to layer a multiplicity of meanings at a single “material” site (Johnson 2012, 5). In his essay about cemeteries as heterotopian

1

places, Peter Johnson presented a pioneering social

anthropological study that traced contemporary burial culture across six cemeteries in London; which were found to host a variety of paradoxical meanings (Johnson 2012, 2). In that study, he assumed the cemetery was an extraordinary space, but found that the users’ practices were “ordinary”, “mundane”, and “domestic” (Johnson 2012, 2-4).

Nevertheless, Lefebvre demands clearing the distinction between the dichotomy of ordinary and extraordinary, he adds that, both of them are fragments of one whole (Lefebvre and Levich 1987, 9). The legacy of modernism derives binaries like “progressive” versus “traditional”, “art” versus “craft”, “elite” versus “popular”, and others; (Upton 2002, 709), yet everyday theories may urge architects to think beyond spatial dichotomies; and provide ways for architects to examine how “categories blur” (Upton 2002, 710-711; Wigglesworth and Till 1998, 7). The unconventional combination of death and life in the cemeteries of Cairo calls for studying the phenomenon in that same manner of eradicating dichotomies to have a new understanding that questions the multiplicity of meanings generated at them.

Accordingly, this thesis aims to explore the negotiation between space and everyday life in the inhabited cemeteries named as Cairo’s City of the Dead.

In order to achieve this

objective, the thesis mainly discusses those questions: 1. How do the everyday practices of the inhabitants of the City of the Dead of Cairo negotiate space, and spatial dichotomies?

2. Do spaces have agency in the everyday life of the inhabitants of the City of the Dead of Cairo?

As a secondary objective, after noticing the polarity the City of the Dead is always discussed through, the thesis questions: 3. Will juxtaposing different narratives regarding the phenomenon of inhabiting the cemeteries reveal something different about its lived experience, and social dichotomies?

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There will be a discussion of “Hereterotopias” in Chapter two, and for a more detailed discussion of it check: Foucault, Michel. 1986. “Of Other Spaces.” Translated by Jay Miskowiec. Diacritics 16 (1): 22. https://doi.org/10.2307/464648.

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1.2

Research Strategy

In an attempt to understand space with the complexity of its lived experience, and to answer the aforementioned questions; the research employs a qualitative strategy. Qualitative research seemed most appropriate because it can be open to all what is new; all what is apparently familiar in the everyday world. Moreover, it tends to describe life from the inside out, from the perspective of the people who live it, and tend to project the meaning they give to a certain phenomenon (Flick, Kardoff, and Steinke 2004, 3-5; Creswell 2009, 4; Denzin and Lincoln 2005).

But no research can claim an attempt to study everything about the “everyday world�. So, as previously mentioned, I aim to stage the everyday practices of a specific group of people (cemetery dwellers) at specific times (during the conducted study) against the space they occupy. This can be done through three main research phases diagrammed in Figure 1.1.

F IGURE 1.1: R ESEARCH P HASES .

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First, the use of theory in a qualitative study might come at the beginning and provide a “lens” that shapes what is looked at (Creswell 2009, 49). So, I started with conducting a theoretical understanding about space and everyday life that acted as an interpretive lens. It selectively relates literature concerned with everyday life to space. It investigates the negotiation between them; how everyday practices “appropriate” spaces and their meaning; and how spaces can be “actors” in the context of the everyday. The work of Michel de Certeau and Henri Lefebvre make up the most part about spaces of the everyday; and that of Bruno Latour about the agency of space.

Second, I conducted fieldwork in the specific context of Cairo’s City of the Dead2. In terms of method, I aimed at obtaining a holistic picture of the studied phenomenon with emphasis on “portraying everyday experiences of individuals by observing and interviewing them and relevant others” (Fraenkel and Wallen 1990). The research process is flexible and evolves contextually in response to whatever is encountered in the participants’ everyday lives (LeCompte and Schensul 2010, 48; Creswell 2009, 175). So, for the studied context being a new phenomenon to myself, qualitative research allows me to clearly describe my standpoint and role that in turn shapes a lot of my interpretations.

For fieldwork data collection, I relied on unstructured interviews and observations. But because data collection and analysis were simultaneous processes (Creswell 2009, 196), I will discuss them with more detail in Chapter Three.

The third and last phase of the research critically reviews the literature about the phenomenon of inhabiting the cemeteries in Cairo. It situates this research’s own findings along with the existing literature to try to answer the question of how do different narratives when juxtaposed together reveal new meanings about space, other than the polarity. John Creswell recommends incorporating the literature at the end of a qualitative study, because that way it can be used inductively and compare/contrast with the discussed themes (Creswell 2009, 27).

1.3

Thesis Narrative

The thesis entitled “Space and Everyday Life in Cairo’s City of the Dead” comprises six chapters as diagrammed in Figure 1.2. The first, hereby discussed, named “Introduction” introduces the research at hand.

2

After the pilot study, the scale of the City of the Dead wasn’t convenient for myself to study all, so a specific area was specified for the fieldwork. This is explained in detail later in Chapter 3.

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Social Dichotomies

F IGURE 1.2: T HESIS S TRUCTURE .

The second chapter to follow is the “Informing Theory”. It is the theoretical background of the study and it comprises three main sections named, What the Everyday Is/Is Not, Spaces of the Everyday, and Spatial Agency in the Everyday. Its aim is to act as a lens informing the understanding of what is to be investigated in the fieldwork. Its argument is that, everyday practices “appropriate” space and its meanings. Whereby, space is an “actor” in everyday life.

The third and fourth chapters are dedicated to the fieldwork. The third named: Fieldwork Design, first gives an overview of the phenomenon of inhabiting the tombs in the City of the Dead. It then discusses the feasibility of approaching that context and provides a more detailed description of the setting where the fieldwork was conducted. It moves to describing the data collection and analysis processes, and the limitations that altered a part of the intended design. Eventually, it explains the researcher’s standpoint in the process.

Then, the fourth chapter named, The Everyday Spaces of the Eastern Cemetery, documents the findings revealed there about space and its usage. It discusses two themes named Invisibility and Sense of Home. It argues that, spaces of the Eastern Cemetery blurred the distinction between different spatial dichotomies. In addition, it portrays the agency of space in the everyday life of the inhabitants of that context. This, along with the theoretical understanding shaped by the previous chapter, corresponds directly to the thesis’s first two questions of exploring the negotiation between space and everyday life in the City of the Dead of Cairo.

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The fifth chapter named Social Dichotomies critically reviews the literature present about the phenomenon of inhabiting the cemeteries in Cairo. It juxtaposes different accounts and perspectives about the phenomenon along with the findings of the empirical study. Its argument is that the City of the Dead is always mediated between different binaries, whereas, the field’s findings suggest that it is always shifting in-between them creating a third, different lived experience. It discusses the social dichotomies of life and death, and acceptable and non-acceptable.

The sixth and last chapter ends the thesis with a conclusion that sums up the findings, but more importantly, raises more questions generated from the limitations, and suggests possibilities of future research.

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2 Chapter Two: Informing Theory

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Chapter Two: Informing Theory This chapter discusses the literature informing the negotiation between space and everyday practices. It comprises three main ideas/sections for discussion. The first aims to question the everyday life: its problematic, definitions, and its power. The second part questions the nature of the space produced by everyday practice. It aims to question spaces in a different way that eradicates the conventional spatial dichotomies. The last section introduces the idea of agency in architecture through exploring Actor-Network-Theory. It questions how to understand the effect a space may have in the everyday context. Eventually, the chapter ends with a summary, and a brief of how those ideas informed the fieldwork conducted and documented in chapters three and four.

2.1

What the Everyday Is/Is Not “There is something extraordinary in its very ordinariness” (Lefebvre 2000, 37).

To begin with, according to Henri Lefebvre, everyday life is defined as a set of “functions which connect and join together systems that might appear to be distinct” (Lefebvre and Levich 1987, 9). The study of everyday life is “vague”; as for the everyday is both a “colonized setting of oppression, banality, and routine” and at the same time, a source of “liberation” (Upton 2002, 707). The everyday, in Lefebvre’s words, is “the most universal and the most unique condition, the most social and the most individuated, the most obvious and the best hidden” (Lefebvre and Levich 1987, 9).

Trying to exactly define it is problematic and the understanding of it can be approached from various perspectives. For that, Dell Upton suggests that it might be defined by what it is not rather than by what it is (Upton 2002, 707). For example, Lefebvre explains that the everyday is what is left after all the distinct, the superior, the specialized, and the structured activities have been analyzed; it profoundly includes all activities with all their differences and conflicts (Lefebvre 1991, 97). For Michel de Certeau, the everyday lacks the “organized discourse of modernity”, but, it is a “silent reserve of procedures” that may support a less oppressive society (de Certeau 2008, 48).

Although everyday life encompasses “seemingly unimportant activities” (Lefebvre 2000, 14), and on the surface may appear as being mere routine; but, it is rather the routine and repetition of the practices of the everyday that teaches our bodies “the habitus” (Upton 2002, [9]

719-721) — which is defined, according to Pierre Bourdieu, as a “system of structured, structuring dispositions” (Bourdieu 2014, 52).

Everyday practices are not mere routine; but they are rather powerful. Power of the everyday practices lies in their governance, which is what concerns Michel Foucault. He studies institutions that constitute parts of the everyday life. For him the power of the everyday is never simply found in the legal rules governing an institution. But rather found in the repetitive practices that produce and instill a sense of discipline (Highmore 2008, 10).

Foucault discussed “minor-but flawless- instrumentalities” capable by their organization to transform “human multiplicity into a disciplinary society” (Foucault 1995, 173).

Meanwhile, Michel de Certeau’s approach can be described as the reciprocal of Foucault’s analysis of the structures of power of the everyday. De Certeau finds power in the resistance of the everyday practices —tactics— that refuse to adapt to the rhythms of the capitalist culture (Highmore 2008, 13; de Certeau 2008, 96-98). Everyday practices, in de Certeau’s terms, are “tactical” as they represent a victory of the weak, or the common, over the “strategy” of the dominating.

Whether everyday life is oppressive or liberating depends on the ways it is organized temporally and spatially. Here lies the significance of studying the everyday and its practices both for: understanding space, and understanding society.

For understanding society, the importance of studying the everyday lies in the meaning of practice which, according to the social theorist Max Weber, include acts, and courses of action and interaction in the everyday activities that inhabitants do not see any significance in (Weber 1970, 26); despite the fact that communities can be understood through the investigation of simple activities and the way space is organized to accommodate them (Abdelmonem 2012, 42).

After discussing the significance of studying the everyday to the understanding of the society, emphasis will be made on its effect on understanding space. Everyday life theory is “permeated with congruent binaries”, and so it does appear to “endorse the longstanding bifurcation of Architectural categories” (Upton 2002, 710). For Lefebvre two terms are never enough to deal with the real and the imagined world: that is not “either-or”, not “in-between” but rather “both-and-also” (Lefebvre 2000, 37). And applying this to space does not suggest discarding what is familiar about space, but rather question it in new ways.

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Studying the everyday from Upton’s point of view, reunites the understanding of Architecture and architecture (the difference between designed and vernacular or pop) making them “neither possible without the other, neither determining the other” (Upton 2002, 719-721). This cancels the idea of the hierarchies and oppositions like “high and low”, “Architecture and architecture”, and other dichotomies that have fragmented the architectural field (Upton 2002, 721). To wish for blurring the dichotomies, the problem of defining the everyday will always evolve, having to know its qualities and through what particular processes it “acts and is acted upon” (Upton 2002, 711). By failing to define it, architecture writers leave it in the “undifferentiated and negative realm occupied by tradition, the vernacular, and pop” (Upton 2002, 711).

The following section will discuss the intersection between the study of the everyday and the study of space. It discusses what may be labeled as, spaces of the everyday, and different ways of approaching them.

2.2

Spaces of the Everyday “Spaces of the everyday never construct from scratch, but rather, rebuild” (Upton 2002, 713-714).

The makers and users at different instances of their everyday, live a life that is large to fit in the professional categories (Wigglesworth and Till 1998). Spatial thinking is “polarized” around oppositions (Read 2000, 17). But this section provides some examples which add a different layer to the understanding of spaces, beyond binarism.

Lefebvre’s concept in his seminal work: The Production of Space attempts to define the production of space by a triad. By this, he rejects the dualism which bares the quality of opposition (Lefebvre 2009). He introduces space as three faceted; all rooted in the everyday life in continuous flow and interaction (Goonewardena et al. 2008, 269). Those three facets are: Spatial practice (perceived space), Representation of space (conceived space) and Representational space (lived space).

For a simple explanation of them, at first, I will use the example provided by (Zhang 2006, 22). According to the author, those three facets may be imagined as three cameras projecting simultaneously onto someone in an event in an organization. The first camera resembling the (perceived space) will project the bodily movement of the man in the space, his walking around and his gestures. The second camera resembling (conceived space) will project mathematical data like dimensions; for instance his height, the corridor’s width, and so on.

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The third resembling (lived space) reaches the man’s inner subjectivity like how he hates the doorknob for it does not turn. All three cameras represent different data; yet all belong to the same space. Lefebvre claims that any member of the society can move from one dimension of those spaces to the other.

The following is a more detailed briefing of each of the three spaces noting that they are in constant definition and re-defnition: First, Spatial practice (perceived space), is a product of the inhabitants who dwell in the space and give it meaning in their everyday practices. They have “close affinities with people’s perceptions of the world, of their world, particularly with respect to their everyday world and its space” (Crang and Thrift 2000, 174).

Second, Representation of space (conceived space), is the space produced by the authority, professionals, or technocrats, i.e. designers, architects and city planners. This is the dominant space in any society.

Thirdly, Representational space (lived space), is a passively experienced space which the imagination seeks to change and appropriate. This space is where lay people unconsciously adapt the conceived space done by the designers to fulfill their needs or modify it according to their preferences. It is experienced through “complex symbols and images of its inhabitants and users and overlays physical space, making symbolic use of its objects” (Crang and Thrift 2000, 174). This space embodies both the conceived and the lived, without being reducible to either (Zhang 2006, 221).

Notably based on the previous work of Lefebvre, comes Edward Soja with his ideas about Thirdspace. He claims that Thirdspace is a radically different way of thinking about space and spatiality (Soja 1996, 29). Thirdspace corresponds to Lefebvre’s third dimension of space named Lived space; a rapidly and continuously changing space that gives the experience of living.

Third space can only be understood through First and Seconds spaces. According to Huib Ernste’s interpretation of Soja’s ideas, First space is the space seen from the top of a skyscraper. It tends to map and “compartmentalize” space. Second space is the conceptualization of the first one; the representation of the space lived in. Thirdspace however, encompasses the previous two without any of them negating the other; we live in the Thirdspace (Ernste 2012).

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The two previous examples of Lefebvre and Soja show that spaces are bearers of a multiplicity of meanings; without any negating the others. One could continuously move from one space with the meanings it bears to the other. Like for example, someone who goes to a market may grow to design it one day. So at first, he/she perceives it as a place where goods are sold and bought. He/she experienced the lived (Thirdspace) as a place where people come together to socialize and gossip giving it different meanings. And at a point he/she becomes the authority; i.e.: an architect or planner, he/she conceives the market and starts producing drawings/maps of it.

The discussion of the heterogeneity of spatial thought extends to others, too. For example, Doreen Massey argues that “for there to be multiplicity (and by extension for there to be difference) there must be space” (Massey 1999, 6); she conceptualizes space as a medium that occupies different voices; highly dependent on the society and time it is constructed in.

Accords with this again is Lefebvre’s argument about the production of space being a social product, or a complex social construct which affects spatial practices and perceptions (Lefebvre 2009).

Foucault also discusses the heterogeneity of socially and temporally constructed spaces. He named those spaces “Heterotopias”. Foucault summarizes six principles of these ‘different’ spaces, but I will only explain the most related two to my study.3 The first principle is the idea of those spaces mutating and having specific operations at different points in history.

The second is, juxtaposing in a single space several incompatible spatial elements.

For Foucault, Utopias, the unreal spaces constructed by the society in order to represent itself in its perfected form, come in contrast with heterotopias that reveal marginal everyday spaces constructed within the already existing space. Not only this, but heterotopias tend to mirror, unsettle and distort the other existing space. Those heterotopias reject the binaries used to describe spaces like the public and the private, the family and the social, the leisure and the work (Foucault 1986, 1-5).

After the previous discussion of spaces that host a multiplicity of meanings that are temporally and socially constructed; it is worthy to refer to the power of the continuous flux of space.

3

Please refer to Michele Foucault for a discussion of the six principles.

Foucault, Michel. 1986. “Of Other Spaces.” Translated by Jay Miskowiec. Diacritics 16 (1): 22. https://doi.org/10.2307/464648.

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Lefebvre emphasizes the necessity to think of space by indicating what occupies it and how it does so (Lefebvre 2009, 12). That is, questioning the power that is instilled by the practices constructed in space. For as, according to Upton, the practices of the everyday lead to social change; not from above, but from the specifities that arise from the different lived experiences of different individuals and groups of society (Upton 2002, 714).

We learn the personal and the social meanings of our agency through our repeated individual actions that become practices and then practices become social formation (Upton 2002, 718).

In other words, community creation is a powerful “everyday notion in terms of which people organize their lives and understand the places and settlements in which they live, and the quality of their relationships” (Abdelmonem 2012, 36). And the idea of how everyday spaces tend to be created (by the inhabitants’ practices) within the already existing built space is in agreement with some seminal spatial thinkers.

First, de Certeau explains that the process of using a space is not passive and guided by established rules. On the contrary, using a space is an act or an “operation.” Action verbs of de Certeau like “practices” and “making do” imply that the production of space has something to do with time, and that therefore, dwelling is a verb or a process rather than a determinate spatial configuration (de Certeau 2008, 35-45). Perec also notes to the conquering of the existing spaces as: “… space becomes a question, ceases to be self-evident, ceases to be incorporated, and ceases to be appropriated. Space is a doubt: I have constantly to mark it, to designate it. It's never mine, never given to me, I have to conquer it” (Perec 1997, 91).

Space occurs as the result of the operations, or the tactics, taking place in it. Tactics are the means by which ordinary people “appropriate” space to their own needs; while “strategy” refers to the space produced by authority to construct a disciplined space. De Certeau further explains that city planners and urbanists look at space from above and produce a representation of it. And the ordinary city practitioners make use of any moment to turn it into their advantage and resist the represented space (de Certeau 2008, 29-43). De Certeau investigates the ways in which users —who are commonly perceived as being passive and guided by established rules— operate. Inhabitants perform acts of making “operations” within the already organized space (de Certeau 2008, xi-xxiv).

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By this, the tactic and the strategy co-exist in tension resulting in a temporally constructed space. And based on the previous understanding of Lefebvre too, I can claim that agency of the everyday practices are formed through provoking the lived and perceived spaces over the conceived in Everyday Life; as “Everyday life internalizes all three moments of Lefebvre’s spatial triad” (Crang and Thrift 2000, 176).

Upton adds something about what an everyday space does. He says, it acts as “the connective tissue that binds everyday life together” (Upton 2002, 707) as it lies in between the clearly defined spaces of homes, workplaces, and other institutions. This brings us to a discussion of Jill Stoner’s study of minor architecture. Because minor spaces pay no attention to “form”, the major architectural kinships are constantly subject to raids by the minor and so must adjust its premises to account for them (Stoner 2012). They turn the segments soft and blur the boundaries between different architectural distinctions.

According to Stoner, minor spaces when occupied do not only respond to forces of vacancy, but create other qualities or meanings that may not fit in the architectural typology of the physical space. I quote her, this is done “through an encoding of these vacant spaces, and a subversion of major architecture’s myths” (Stoner 2012, 3-8). In addition, the architect and theorist Joan Ockman (as cited in (Upton 2002, 714) states that the minor “is always potentially challenging or hybridizing that which is major” and that the major is “constantly subject to raids by the minor and so must adjust its premises and its strategies to account for them”. This means that they operate through actions altering and dematerializing the constructed world.

To attempt to understand the meaning of space to its users, the analysis of how the users— not the makers— “appropriate” it must be done. Only then, the difference between the production of space and the secondary production in its utilization can be found. Ordinary practitioners just walking in their city create a “network of trajectories that, when compared to representations, are daily and indefinitely other” (de Certeau 2008, 91-93).

So, other than observing the tactics of the everyday to understand what spaces do they create, stories that inhabitants narrate daily could be examined too. Stories as tactics may, sometimes, resist the strategic representation of space. Everyday stories of mundane daily activities, dreams, memories, or even stories of spatial navigation slip through the geometric representation of space transforming them and adding a new layer of understanding them.

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This section discussed different spatial thoughts that show the production of a multiplicity of meanings at the spaces that may be labeled as, spaces of the everyday. It then showed the necessity of understanding the power of the practices that happen and by turn, construct those spaces. That is the first side of investigating the negotiation between space and everyday life.

The coming section investigates that negotiation from the other perspective, questioning if spaces can be agents in the experience of the everyday.

2.3

Spatial Agency in the Everyday “Space is at once a result and a cause, a product and a producer” Henri Lefebvre, quoted in (Goonewardena et al. 2008, 270).

Lefebvre, in the context of everyday life, as quoted above, argues that space is not only produced by the society; but it also produces the society (Lefebvre 2009). Albena Yaneva similarly, sees that spaces have the capacity of making transformations to their environments and generating different subjectivities (Yaneva 2012, 110).

This section introduces the idea of agency in architecture. It displays its potential in blurring spatial dichotomies. It provides Actor Network Theory (ANT) as an example for attempting to question agency of architecture, and last it presents the critique of ANT. Agency is a term that was introduced recently to the architectural discourse (Awan, Schneider, and Till 2011, 30). It was used before into social and political theories as the dialectic of agency versus structure; and defined in that context as “the ability of the individual to act independently of constraining structures of society” (Awan, Schneider, and Till 2011, 31). Spatial Agency 4 roots from the incapability of “human-centric” notions to provide a unified concept of human/nonhuman, material/non-material, and subject/object and make an association between them (Lotfi 2010, 13).

The first problematic of speaking about agency in architecture is the multiple questions that can be asked. For example, it could be the agency of the architect; and to what extent did it affect the society. It can also question the power of the building itself and its meaning to its users. Or maybe the whole built environment and what it does for a society at large. Perhaps even talking from the perspective of theory and how it shifts paradigms and what effects does 4

“Spatial Agency” is also the name of an ongoing architecture research project. Main researchers of this project

are Nishat Awan, Tatjana Schneider, and Jeremi Till. For more information about this project see http://www.spatialagency.net

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it leave. For this, the question of agency shall be divided into smaller sub questions that can be re-assembled together; they will usually start with “the agency of what” (Doucet and Cupers 2009, 3).

In an attempt to trace those questions, Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) as advanced by Bruno Latour shall be introduced. ANT is building on “Assemblage”, a concept that goes back to the French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, in that an assemblage can be comprised of non-hierarchical actors (be them humans or objects) and that all actors gain power according to the associations that are held between them (Latour 2008, 73-77).

It is known as a material-semiotic method, meaning that it considers the relations involving both tangible objects and concepts. Actor-network theorists think about how the relations between objects, people, and concepts are created, maintained, or destroyed, instead of why.

For ANT, architecture is a dynamic “assembly” of various associated humans and non-human (actors/actants), rather than a static material product (Lotfi 2010, 3).

In his seminal work “Reassembling the Social”, Latour criticizes the current notion of “the social”, being used to make assumptions about the nature of actors that are connected in the social domain rather than just describing the connections (Latour 2008, 7). He seeks to define ANT as the sociology of associations, radically transforming how society deals with technology and non-human actors, which are granted the same agency of human actors inside a network.

Latour’s perpective of ANT bypasses the traditional dichotomies of architecture and describes buildings as heterogeneous and multi-scalar phenomena (Latour 2008); and Albena Yaneva following this describes her approach as “not taking dualisms such as society and architecture (or form and function) as givens, but looks at architectural processes as they unfold from a more undifferentiated and anthropological perspective” (Yaneva 2012, 25-48).

Working with the understanding of ANT requires that researchers show all possible actors at a certain point of time without interfering with or hiding any. For ANT, “anything that does modify a state of affairs by making a difference is an actor or, if it has no figuration yet, an actant” (Latour 2008, 71).

The rationale behind the notion is that interactions between people are almost always mediated—by language, by devices, by objects. They define the relationships and the context for activities by participating in social relations. As a result, objects can determine how [17]

people behave and the actions they perform. Complexity often slows things down, so people hide it through abstraction. If a network appears to operate as a whole, we treat it as a single entity.

There is an example that Latour gives for discussing a wooden fence and its agency in creating a new context for a shepherd and his flock (Caronia and Mortari 2015, 404). In this example, Latour questions: Isn’t the shepherd who conceived, created and installed the fence to prevent his flock to run away? Aren’t him, his competences and skills that transformed some pieces of wood in a fence that makes a difference and has a traceable agency? Aren’t therefore the human beings, their culture and semiotic practices at the very beginning and at the end of the agency of things (if any)? (Latour 2008, 239) However, there is literature that criticizes ANT for not being able to challenge power structures but only describe them, and descriptions can keep going endlessly. It is also criticized for dismissing crucial social factors such as race, gender, or class. I am also aware that ANT tackles mainly technological actors. Moreover, it cannot explain everyday unexplicated terms like ‘hard facts’, ‘geniuses’ nor ‘bias’ (Laurier 2010, 438). However, Latour argues back that nothing can be reduced to anything else, nothing can be deduced from anything else, everything may be allied to everything else (Latour 1988, 16-19,163).

2.4

From Theory to Field

This section provides a summary for the aforementioned ideas. Then, it discusses how those ideas informed the fieldwork documented in chapters three and four. In summary, this chapter discussed first the problematic of defining what everyday life is; then provided some definitions for it. It discussed some of its properties, mainly it being permeated with binaries and the resistance that subtlety lies in the everyday practices. This summary is diagrammed in Figure 2.1 The study moved on to exploring the negotiation between space and everyday life from the perspective of the daily practices. That is to say, it explored what resulted from those practices that may be labeled as spaces of the everyday. The properties of those spaces most importantly were; their multiplicity and continuity in flux. Also, their ability to be questioned beyond spatial dichotomies.

Later, it re-examined the negotiation between space and everyday life, but from the other side. It discussed the idea of agency and its introduction to architecture. It explored the most [18]

seminal application of studying agency that is Actor Network Theory. This showed that ANT can be adopted as a way to understand how buildings are embedded in networks that have an effect in the context of the everyday.

These ideas are informative for the investigation carried out in a specific context like The City of the Dead for many reasons. First, it examines the context with its specific everyday practices of its inhabitants. It learns to look at the effect of those practices from two perspectives, bottom-up and top-down (tactic versus strategy). Moreover, it questions the blurring between different categories in a context that has been studied for long with the mindset of dualities; so it questions what may come in between.

It is important to note that on the context of the City of the Dead, spaces are not represented in a way that speaks of what happens in it; nor of how the meaning of space differs from the outsiders’ and the residents’ perspectives. This makes it essential to look beyond its architectural representation and explore different ways of describing spaces like inhabitants’ spatial stories. In addition, in a place where life and death are intertwined, it is essential to understand how those spaces of the dead influence those living in it. So, it makes the question of the agency of physical objects/spaces that relate to death in the everyday life essential.

F IGURE 2.1: S YNTHESIS O F T HE D ISCUSSED T HEORETICAL I DEAS

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3 Chapter Three: Fieldwork Design

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Chapter Three: Fieldwork Design This chapter focuses on the method of the field study. It explains the design of the fieldwork and the iterations and phases it has gone through. It starts with an overview of the context, the City of the Dead, which I justified the choice of as a relevant site for exploring the negotiation between space and everyday practices in the introductory chapter. Then, it describes the specific setting of the Eastern Cemetery where the fieldwork was conducted.

This chapter further highlights the data collection procedures. It describes the process of data analysis, the feasibility of the fieldwork, the challenges faced, and the role /standpoint of the researcher.

3.1

Overview of the City of the Dead So the Eusapia of the living has taken to copying its underground copy.

They say that this has not just now begun to happen: actually it was the dead who built the upper Eusapia, in the image of their city. They say that in the twin cities there is no longer any way of knowing who is alive and who is dead (Calvino 1978, 110).

In Italo Calvino’s invisible city of Eusapia, the inhabitants wanted to make the leap from life to death less abrupt, so they built an identical copy of their city underground. Only a group of hooded brothers had access to the dead city. They claimed the dead made innovations to it; which by turn made the living want to keep up with the dead and copy their innovations.

According to Calvino, cities have absurd rules and perspectives that often conceal something else—something invisible. Calvino’s fictional description of his city gives an insight into the relationship between the space of the living and that of the dead.

The City of the Dead, Cairo’s Qarāfah5, is a name given collectively for the three historic cemeteries of Cairo shown in Figure 3.1 and named: the Southern Cemetery, Bāb al-Nasr Cemetery, and the Eastern Cemetery (some sources refer to it as the Northern Cemetery).

The City of the Dead contains many impressive Islamic mosques and domes, mostly dating back to the Mamlūks period, 1250-1570 A.D.(Fahmi and Sutton 2014, 7). Because of the impressive Islamic monuments in it, there has been a touristic interest in visiting it; and it started to be inserted into unconventional touristic itineraries diverging from the traditional neighboring destinations of old Cairo (Fahmi and Sutton 2014; Al-Ibrashy 2013).

5

The name Qarāfah is now used to denote cemeteries in general, but, the Southern Cemetery is the original name holder of Qarāfah as cited in Al-Ibrashy. 2005. “The History of the Southern Cemetery of Cairo from the 14th Century to the Present: An Urban Study of a Living Cemetery.” London: Univeristy of London

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Concurrently, the City of the Dead is a unique kind of squatter settlement. Its inhabitants either live in the mausoleums or, in self-built constructions around the tombs. Tomb dwelling in Egypt goes back to the ancient cemetery of Thebes (Fahmi and Sutton 2014, 10). May AlIbrashy in a previous study on the Southern Cemetery, argued that the tradition of building a structure that provides accommodation for the visitor or the graveyard caretaker dates back to the Abbasid period (Al-Ibrashy 2005, 33-38).

Later, with the growing size of the cemeteries and the increasing importance of building impressive mausoleums, first by the Mamlūks and then during Mohamad Ali’s rule (18051841), the number of permanent guardians and cemeteries workers increased (El Kadi 1995, 125-150). A population of four thousand people was estimated to be living in the cemeteries by the mid-15th century, who were mostly custodians or caretakers (Williams 2008, 233).

This suggests that inhabiting tombs is relatively not a new phenomenon. It is just that their density has changed over time.

F IGURE 3.1: G EOGRAPHICAL L OCATION OF T HE C ITY OF Source: Adapted from (Fahmi and Sutton 2014, 5)

THE

D EAD

During the 1930s and 1940s, Cairene population increased, and housing problems increased too, making the cemeteries a housing alternative. Rents for the tombs were accounted reasonable. And even those who couldn’t afford to pay the rents helped with death-related [22]

jobs. There are some cases were the inhabitants were the hawsh owners; or the owners’ relatives. This was apparent, according to Gad (1992), when some inhabitants explained that their stay in the cemeteries was because of the collapse or deterioration of their original homes within Old Cairo districts like al-Darb al-Ahmar. However, a large percentage of the residents were originally rural migrants who had relatives living in the tombs. For them, the way of life in the cemeteries was somehow similar to their original villages (Fahmi and Sutton 2014, 10-12). By the end of the 19th century, Cairo’s housing crisis began and the cemeteries became a shelter for many of the early squatters seeking residence (Fahmi and Sutton 2014, 27).

There is a controversy around the current actual population of the City of the Dead. Most Cairenes are aware, but tend to ignore, that almost an entire city exists among the cemeteries (Ansah 2010, 1-5). Others underestimate the numbers of dwellers living there. Max Rodenbeck claims that no-one knows exactly how many people live in it “because it is hard to define where the tombs end and the living city begins” (Rodenbeck 1998, 47). However, back in the 1990s, he claimed that rough estimates suggest that it accommodates over two million people (Rodenbeck 1998, 47).

It is clear from the geographic location of the City of the Dead, that it allows easy accessibility to daily commutes in Cairo. That is to say, the Eastern Cemetery and the Southern Cemetery, lie south and east of old Cairo at the foot of the Muqattam plateau. Bāb al-Nasr Cemetery is the smallest of the three cemeteries, and lies north of old Cairo extending from the ancient Fatimid Gate. The Eastern Cemetery begins at the north-east corner of the Citadel and extends north until the boundaries of Nasr City (Nedoroscik 1997, 3). It is accessed through the two arterial roads of Salāh Sālim and Autostrād. To the East of it, lies the informal settlement of Manshīyat Nāssir and the Muqattam area which separates it from the Southern Cemetery; which has the largest agglomeration of tombs. It extends from the eastern entrance of the Citadel until the outskirts of Maadi. It is bordered by Salāh Sālim from a side and the Muqattam slopes from the other.

3.2 Specific Setting Description According to the survey conducted by Barmelgy et al. 2016; The Eastern Necropolis is a strip of land about 600 meters wide and 3.5 km in length. It is bordered from the west by Fatimid Cairo and Salāh Sālim Road, while from the East by al-Nasr Street. It is bordered from the North by Tayarān Street and Manshīyat Nāssir, and from the South by the Citadel.

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The Eastern Cemetery is subdivided into the Ghafīr, the Qaytbāy, the Mūjāwirīn, and the Bāb al-Wazīr which is extending westwards into the city, north of the Citadel Figure 3.2(AlIbrashy 2005, 29-32; Fahmi and Sutton 2014). Jeffrey Nedoroscik describes the Eastern Cemetery as “sere and dusty, a jumble of small houses with innumerable domes rising among them” (Nedoroscik 1997, 3). He added that looking at it, the eye meets “a tapestry of square and rectangular interlocked buildings interspersed with the major monuments” (Nedoroscik 1997, 4). Figure 3.3 shows an example of monuments seen between buildings.

The Eastern cemetery was developed primarily in the 14th century under the reign of “Baybars” (Williams 2008; Hamza 2001). It all started in Maydān Al Qabaq where war games and military parades were performed. Then the Maydān was abandoned after a while and the games moved to the Citadel. Until, under the reign of al-Nāssir Muḥammad whose era was marked by a rush in building construction; the first mausoleum was built there in alṣaḥarā’, as it was referred to.

F IGURE 3.2: T HE E ASTERN C EMETERY S UBDIVISIONS ,

ADAPTED FROM

(F AHMI

AND

S UTTON 2014, 6).

Al-ṣaḥarā’ started attracting Ṣūfī groups to escape the turmoil of the city (Williams, 1985).

Moreover, they used to build burial tombs for their dead holy Shaykhs which encouraged their followers to be buried next to them. This also impacted Mamlūks like Faraj Barqūq to

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dictate his will to be buried beside the Shaykhs he believed in their sainthood (Al-Ibrashy 2005, 33-38).

However, Mamlūks started building complexes not only masusoleums there. Faraj Barqūq’s complex had a khānqāh and a sabīl-kūttāb. In addition, Sūltān Qāytbāy’s complex had a hostel, a sabīl for humans and a waterwheel for animals. Also buildings like flour mills and bakeries appeared.

Ironically, even after the encroachment of tombs in the cemetery area, it was never referred to in literature as “Qarāfah” but always as the desert of the Mamlūks or “Ṣaḥarā’ Ẓahīr alQāhirah” (Hamza 2001; Al-Ibrashy 2005, 33-38; Williams 2008).

Images of the historical cemetery today show that most of its area is made up of walled plots, many of which are partially built, as shown in Figure 3.4. The Eastern Cemetery, much like the rest of the City of the Dead, contains roughly three variations of spaces namely funeral, non-funeral, and dual nature spaces having both funeral and non-funeral nature (Al-Ibrashy 2005, 31).

F IGURE 3.3: M ONUMENTS 6

IN - BETWEEN THE

B UILDINGS . 6

All photographs are taken by the author in 2017 and 2018 unless otherwise mentioned.

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F IGURE 3.4: W ALLED P LOTS

THAT

M AKE U P M OST

OF THE

C EMETERY A REAS .

The first variation is the pure funeral spaces; which are open spaces with multiple tombstones that do not provide shelter (Figure 3.5). The second is the non-funeral spaces which are constructions around the tombs. Instead of living inside the tombs, some inhabitants created more conventional squatter homes in-between the tombs and on the edges of the cemetery area (Fahmi and Sutton 2014, 10-12). They may be used for residential, commercial or industrial activities (Al-Ibrashy 2005, 33). Examples are shown in Figure 3.6.

F IGURE 3.5: E XAMPLES

OF

P URE F UNERAL S PACES

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WITH

N O S HELTER .

F IGURE 3.6: E XAMPLES O F M ORE C ONVENTIONAL C ONSTRUCTIONS A ROUND T HE T OMBS W ITH D IFFERENT U SES .

The third variation, which is the focus of this study, is the hybrid spaces accommodating both funeral and non-funeral activities. These are the walled up graveyards—hawsh—that contain a burial yard and a shelter, initially for visitors and caretakers. Figure 3.7 and Figure 3.8 show inhabited tombs examples. Inhabitants show diversity in how they accommodated tomb spaces. I only focused on data gathered from inhabitants living in tombs and not in self-built houses around them. I excluded field data extracted from participants living in conventional houses around the tombs.

F IGURE 3.7: H YBRID S PACES , T OMBS T HAT A CCOMMODATE T HE D EAD A ND T HE L IVING .

Sometimes, buildings are separated by wide avenues; while at other times just dusty paths.

Sometimes the buildings look like they have an organization; and sometimes they looked to me like they lacked direction or design.

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F IGURE 3.8: A N I NHABITED T OMB E XAMPLE .

Source: Photographed by Tamara Abdul Hadi for (Etancelin 2014).

Tombs typically consist of a structure that may include one or two rooms plus a walled courtyard Figure 3.9. The rooms inside the tombs were mostly designed for extended family visits accommodation, and sometimes, caretakers’ accommodation was also there. That is why, along with their families, they make up the first community of the City of the Dead (Nedoroscik 1997, 4).

The example shown in Figure 3.9 first shows the possible approach to the tomb through a relatively wide street. The outdoor extension here is used as a male gathering/seating spot; while at some other tombs it was used differently. Sometimes, it works as a confectionery and other times, with approaches of a narrower alley, an extension of the home activities.

The entrance from the street to the tomb area is usually through an indoor lobby that in most of the cases is used as a living area. According to Nedoroscik, the number of the rooms indicate wealth, power, and social status of the owning family, and in the Eastern Cemetery, old family tomb complexes sit side by side with newer poorly constructed ones (Nedoroscik 1997, 4). The lobby typically leads to a courtyard. The courtyard sometimes has built rooms for burial, and other times the burials are only outdoor. It hosts a variety of activities like sleeping, eating or cooking. Some tombs contain plantations in the courtyards.

And some have beautifully crafted cenotaphs and entry gates. When self-assembled wooden or aluminum sheds are found, it means that the space below usually host the living only.

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F IGURE 3.9: O NE E XAMPLE O UTLINING T HE U SE O F A N I NHABITED T OMB .

According to the Muslim burial culture I am previously aware of and documented by the visits, the dead are typically buried either below the family visit rooms or the courtyard; that is usually marked by the gravestone. Tombs are opened and closed after any burial event. The opening of the tomb is typically covered by few stones, when removed, leads to stairs leading down to a chamber where, according to Muslim rituals, the bodies lay to rest there.

Tombs typically have a room for males and a room for females. The location of the opening of the tomb is usually not noticeable for an outsider (Nedoroscik 1997, 5) but of course [29]

known for the family, and the tomb inhabitants. The living usually visit their dead on their birthdays, and on special religious occasions like feasts and the holy month of Ramadan (Nedoroscik 1997; El Kadi and Bonnamy 2001).

In agreement with Wael Fahmi et al, I detected a four leveled hierarchical social structure of the tomb residents. At the top of the hierarchy, were the undertaker's assistants and Waqf civil workers, both groups concerned with managing the activities of the cemeteries. Secondly came a group including craft-workers, small businessmen, and owners of small workshops.

The third category was composed of day laborers, and gravediggers. At the base of the social hierarchy were the retired, elderly, female-led families, “infirm, hawkers and the unemployed.” Apparently certain more middle class occupations were found because some families had been compelled to seek refuge inside their ancestral family tombs following the collapse or the destruction by an earthquake of their original house or apartment block (Fahmi and Sutton 2014, 16).

The majority of the tomb dwellers participants showed appreciation to the relative accessibility of their cemetery districts rather than new settlements locations. And they also appreciated the low density of population amongst them. According to a historical account, Janet Abu-Lughod recognized how the inhabitants favor their quiet streets of the City of the Dead over the historical Fatimid city by claiming that: "it is inevitable that some of her (Cairo's) citizens will prefer the air and openness of the cities of the dead to the oppressive crush in the cities of the living"(Abu-Lughod 2005, 197).

The area of the Eastern Cemetery can be divided into the center, and the peripheral areas adjacent to the main roads. The central area has the majority of the monuments Figure 3.10.

Those monuments make the Eastern Cemetery the most visited of the three cemeteries by tourists because of its “grandeur of Mamlūk funerary structures such as Barqūq, Barsbāy, and the most impressive of all, al-Ashraf Qaytbāy” ( Al-Ibrashy 2013, 60).

According to a survey conducted by the General Organization for Physical Planning (GOPP) and documented by Fahmi et al., that focused on building conditions, heights, uses, types of cemeteries, building materials, ownership patterns, and architectural style; there were major urban and physical problems in the Eastern cemeteries (Fahmi and Sutton 2014, 17).

Although the study reported the presence of historical monuments and mausoleums as part of Cairo's heritage, all were under threat from bad maintenance and environmental degradation (Al-Ibrashy 2013, 2) (Figure 3.11). Moreover, the identifiable boundaries around the cemetery make no possibility for horizontal expansion of the cemetery area.

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F IGURE 3.10: M ONUMENTS A ND T OMBS I N T HE C ENTER O F T HE E ASTERN C EMETERY , E L K ADI , 1996.

The coming section discusses the design and feasibility of the required field investigation, to attempt to answer the question of: how do the everyday practices of the inhabitants of the City of the Dead of Cairo negotiate space, and spatial dichotomies; and, also question the idea of the agency of space in the everyday life of the inhabitants of the City of the Dead.

F IGURE 3.11: A N I NTERIOR A ND E XTERIOR V IEW O F A M AUSOLEUM S HOWING T HE P HYSICAL D EGRADATION O F M ONUMENTS .

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3.3 Fieldwork Design and Feasibility This research, as previously mentioned, is a qualitative research that aims at exploring the negotiation between everyday life practices and architectural space. Qualitative research is emergent, in a sense that its initial plan cannot be tightly pre-designed and some of its phases may change or shift after entering the field (Creswell 2009, 176-178). This was what happened during conducting the fieldwork. It is flexible and evolves contextually in response to whatever is encountered in the participants’ everyday lives (LeCompte and Schensul 2010, 48; Creswell 2009, 175). This suited the research objectives because of the specifity of the everydayness of the inhabitants of the chosen site; that I had no prior knowledge of.

Because qualitative research has to show how I was granted access to the setting, and the approval of the gatekeepers, and any comments about sensitive ethical issues (Creswell 2009, 178; Marshall and Rossman 2006, 74), I will provide more details about my approach to accessing the context of the studied phenomenon.

During the time period from March to May, 2017, I conducted a pilot study to investigate the possibility of gaining access to the field, during which, much of the initial plan was reformulated. At the beginning, I intended to study the whole area of the City of the Dead, which comprises the three historic cemeteries. But, after the pilot study, I concluded that I would not be able to have access to the whole three cemetery areas. I only gained access to the Eastern Cemetery. I also concluded that I needed to focus on visiting the field in normal —everyday—settings. That is to say, avoiding Fridays or feast days, where atypical (though repetitive) events may happen.

I contacted a charity organization located in Manshīyat Nāssir that used to hold some educational activities for kids in the Eastern Cemetery. One of the teachers, a resident of Manshīyat Nāssir, maintained a connection with one of her students living inside a tomb.

She introduced me to the student’s family —who were a third generation cemetery residents— as a researcher who is conducting a research about spaces of residence inside the tombs. I requested to visit them Saturday’s of every week to spend some time with them in their living area. I expected a snowball effect later, that will allow me to get introduced to more families.

They agreed but with some concerns. I should not reveal any details about them, their names, or anything that gives clues to where they are exactly located. Second, I should not photograph the space because it might help identify it, whether from clues related to their [32]

living activity, or physical clues of the identification of the tomb of the dead. They had those concerns because the owners of a nearby tomb had its inhabitants evicted because they appeared on TV during some journalist or documentary interviews.

Unfortunately, the visits continued for only one month and I was not welcomed anymore. The family started getting anxious and unsure about my intentions no matter how many times I assured them not to be identifying their names or any identifiable features of the place.

However, I was able to collect a large amount of data, especially observational, from those preliminary visits.

Aside from that mode of entry, I continued the research going on random walks in the streets of the City of the Dead; and because of the recent touristic interest in the area, the residents are sort of used to frequent random encountering, interviewing, and inside home invitation, as long as it seemed casual like just a simple walk or an excitement about their living conditions; not journalism nor research related questions. Those walks continued in the Eastern Cemetery for one year after the pilot study.

During the course of the one year visits, I tried different walking experiences. Sometimes within a tourist walk, other times just alone, or with one or two male or female friends that helped in ice-breaking. Every experience of those exposed me to different information, and different criteria for using the information. For example, having a male company facilitated my interviews with men outside their homes. And because it was outside the homes, they did not mind taking photographs as long as their faces do not show. Meanwhile, the company of men made it harder to accessing the homes of women.

Visiting women inside their homes was a diverse experience. I have to mention that at few instances I considered myself conducting “participant observations�. That is because, only with few families and for few visits, I spent prolonged hours with the participants engaging myself in the same activities they were doing. Other than this, when I introduced myself as a researcher, it made the participants uncomfortable to be conducting their usual activities neglecting my presence. The focus shifted to me and the conversation with me.

Sometimes, I was invited over for a drink after the conversation inside the tomb; and other times it was just having the interview on the outside and then me getting in for seeing the space from the inside. Some residents agreed that I take photographs, just as long as they do

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not reveal names or traces about the identity of the dead. Others simply denied, but agreed on sketches that they made sure to look at after being drawn.

There was a diversity in the type of spaces (homes) I had access to. This will be de discussed more in section 3.4 of this chapter. However, I only relied on data that was collected from the inhabitants occupying the tombs, for there are different typologies of dwellings in the context.

3.4

Researcher’s Standpoint

I have to identify my role in this research, and how some aspects may have affected my interpretations. I live in Cairo too, in a relatively geographically close area, but a totally different setting. First of all, I had no prior personal relationship with the context. I had not previously visited it for any personal reasons that have to do with death or mourning. This definitely made my journeys there devoid of some emotions.

My personal experience informs me that being an architect shaped some of my impressions there and facilitated opening up some conversations about the architectural value of many of the mausoleums and monuments with the participants.

However, I approached the context with a lot of preconceived ideas that I had to later put on paper to make myself aware of them first. These preconceived ideas put me at the risk of imposing my own judgments. Those ideas are shaped mainly by two sources. The first source was the media, and the common knowledge. There is a tendency of portraying life in the cemeteries as belonging to social misfits; this idea has been showed in many movies. Besides, there was always referring to it as a context for drug dealing, and the usual murmuring about how unsafe it is to visit alone or on uncrowded days. This tended to dramatize the choice of it as a context and the insecurities that I might later face.

The second source was actually the theories I was informed by. Ideas coming from the literature gave me a tendency to over-romanticize the situation. Ideas talking about tactics, or giving the inhabitants agency by claiming their practices as modes of resistance made me aware that I need to pay attention not to romanticize a situation that is not by any means romantic. If inhabitants were able to appropriate the space they live in and claim their right to it, I must remember that this is done for as no alternative may be there. Moreover, that winning-over of the spaces may come at price of, for example, children growing amongst usual scream and grief. I shared the fear of Lefebvre, that the study of the everyday becomes [34]

“magnifying the life of the proletariat, of the man in the street” for that neither the “quotidian” nor the “modern” monopolized “power or powerlessness” (Lefebvre 2000, 37).

3.5 Data Collection Methods As for the procedure of data collection, qualitative research requires multiple forms of data, rather than relying on a single data source (Creswell 2009, 175-176). This includes in-depth interviewing and ongoing participant observation (Creswell 2009, 196; Groat and Wang 2002, 182-184).

That is to say, the researcher should study “an intact cultural group in a natural setting over a prolonged period of time by collecting primarily observational and interview data”(Creswell 2009, 13). Data is typically collected in the participants’ “natural setting” (Creswell 2009, 4).

So I have to claim that the data used for analysis in this study relies more on the interviews because of the limited number of times I was considered a participant.

3.5.1 Interviews For this research, I conducted non-structured interviews with residents. Interviews took place within the everyday settings. With men, I conducted them in the alleyways or coffee houses, and with women, inside their homes. Qualitative interviews are intended to “elicit views and opinions” from participants (Creswell 2009, 181; Groat and Wang 2002, 182-184). They primarily focused on listening from the particpants’ perspectives about experiences of their everyday living in the context of the City of the Dead.

The participant7 selection was determined by the issues of access; to those who welcomed me to access their stories about their daily lives. Interviews were unstructured because of the differences of the participants that I may not know beforehand. For example, interviewing a care-taker of the tomb was different than an inhabitant that does not work in death-related jobs. The caretaker mostly does not sleep there everyday so he had a different experience.

And before opening the discussion, I cannot expect the identity or profession or mode of living of the participant, so questions were mostly open-ended.

I usually started the interview by questioning if the participant lives here or not and since when. Then, the flow of the conversation continued differently. The interviews revealed much about how the participants perceived themselves and the space with the different nature they live in. I aimed to know if they perceive that different nature and how do they deal with 7

There is an overview of the participants in Appendix B

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it. Moreover, I wanted to understand how the physical space interferes with their everyday activities.

The time taken for the interviews varied, but the majority were between ten to fifty minutes.

Most of the interviews were audio recorded to keep the flow of information with no disruption. They were held in the Arabic language, and they were translated to English in later stages of the study. I kept an interview guide in my research log. Right after each interview, I would write my comments, transcribe each interview and place initial codes in the margins. I analyzed in-depth ten interviews, after the exclusion of unrelated interviews, whether because the participants lived in excluded typologies or did not fully reside there,.

3.5.2 Observations Field investigation also included observation, but as a secondary source because of the difficulty of undertaking participant observations in the context. When I introduced myself as a researcher; it made the participants uncomfortable to be conducting their usual activities neglecting my presence. The focus shifted to me and to the conversation with me. With only two families and for four visits at the beginning of the study, I was allowed to spend prolonged time with the participants engaging myself in the same activities they were doing.

However I used much of the observed data from those preliminary visits.

Access to the living areas of the inhabitants was essential, to be able to conduct the observations in their natural setting, over repetitive visits for prolonged exposure.

Observations included attention to physical and non-physical aspects; as qualitative observations are those in which the researcher takes field notes on “the behavior and activities� of participants (Creswell 2009, 181; Groat and Wang 2002, 182-184).

In such specific context, physical aspects includes the way the space is organized around graveyard stones and burying chambers. It also includes how the space is furnished around those elements; what changes are new to the home like its color or tiling. I observed if those death-related elements were creatively used during the practices of the everyday, or if they were neglected. Attention to non-physical aspects in that context included the gestures the participants made when anything provoked them. It also included how they move around in the space and pursue their activities.

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Observations mainly aided in understanding spatial traces of appropriation. However, I also took notes of how the participants responded in different events. For example, what changes they do when a stranger passes by.

3.6 Data Documentation and Analysis Concerning the first data source, the quotes from interviews used here are translated, from Arabic to English by myself, and sometimes grammatically edited. To maintain the residents’ anonymity, their real names are not revealed and they are identified by pseudonyms. Most of them were documented through audio recording. I took notes in the research log and then later transcribing them digitally in dated files; with marginal notes, as the example shown in Figure 3.12.

Observations and photos (where available) were digitally and chronologically organized after the visits. In spaces where photographs were not allowed, I attempted to draw sketches from my memory right after the visit.

Analysing the data was based on an inductive approach. It required detailed information from participants’ being “chunked” into categories, then more generalized patterns or themes (Creswell 2009, 64). In qualitative studies, themes are usually the main finding and they are supported by quotations or any evidence (Creswell 2009, 189-190). In order to familiarize myself with the data, I read and re-read the transcribed text several times. I highlighted specific words, or categories of information for each participant; those highlighted words were somehow related to the main questions. Similar highlighted words were later grouped together for the generation of broader themes.

In this research, the generated themes are interpreted and discussed according to the understanding of the theoretical background discussed in the previous chapter. For a better validation of the findings, I followed Creswell’s ideas of referring to the personal biases and how interpretation of findings is related to my own background and beliefs (as done in the previous section) (Creswell 2009, 191-192).

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F IGURE 3.12: E XAMPLE

8

OF I NTERVIEW

Overview of the ten participants is in Figure 8.2

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D OCUMENTATION . 8

4 Chapter Four: The Everyday Spaces of the Eastern Cemetery

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Chapter Four: The Everyday Spaces of the Eastern Cemetery This chapter comprises two sections. The first section 4.1 Themes document the fieldwork carried out in the Eastern Cemetery. It is the resultant of observations and unstructured interviews. It synthesizes the outcome of the fieldwork under two themes 4.2.1 Invisibility, and 4.2.2 Sense of Home. Then, the third section 4.2 Reflections on the themes reflects on those themes and ties them to the informing theories. It discusses those reflections on two levels mainly. First, how the everyday practices blur the distinction between architectural dichotomies of indoor/outdoor, public/private, and work/home. Second, it discusses themes extracted from the data in the form of networks occurring in the everyday where space is an actor. This is influenced by the previously discussed theories. The discussion of the themes along with the reflections on them correspond to the research’s main aim of trying to understand how space and everyday life practices are negotiated in the context of the Eastern Cemetery.

4.1

Themes

This section is the synthesis of the field’s interviews and observations. I identified similar meanings from the data and grouped them together resulting in two main ideas, or themes namely 4.2.1 Invisibility and 4.2.2 Sense of home. I will discuss each theme separately with its own subthemes as diagrammed in Figure 4.1.

F IGURE 4.1: E XTRACTED T HEMATIC M EANINGS .

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4.1.1 Invisibility My preconceived ideas approaching the context made me always conscious of the presence of funerary elements or activities. I could easily observe them. But for the inhabitants, their discussions and modes of activities revealed something different; which is the theme of invisibility. I will discuss invisibility on two levels namely 4.2.1.1 Normalization of death and 4.2.1.2 Invisible life traces. The first argues how death and its related activities go unnoticed in the everyday life of the tomb inhabitants in the Eastern Cemetery. The second argues that at many times, the living inhabitants have to go invisible and hide any traces for their everyday life.

4.1.1.1 Normalization of Death Funerary activities and manifestations of grief are normal repeated everyday scenes in the

City of the Dead; along with the Qura’n reciters, who are constant no matter what changes happen to the community (Al-Ibrashy 2005, 39). I am claiming that death has been normalized for the inhabitants. It became a normal part of their everyday landscape to the extent that it may go unnoticed. For example, the living inhabitants and the dead share a common sleeping space (Figure 4.2).

F IGURE 4.2: A B ED N EXT T O A G RAVESTONE .

The living inhabitants were able to creatively change the use of the wood coffins into ironing boards, dinner tables, benches, and beds normalizing the presence of death reminding elements (Figure 4.3). Inhabitants eventually stop noticing them unless something provokes their sharing of the same spaces whether for sleeping or other living activities.

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One of the participants talking about this questioned why bother living with the dead, they are actually much quieter and cause me no problems like the living neighbors. When asked, many of the participants claimed they prefer living in the cemeteries for it is quieter and everyone is “minding their own business”.

F IGURE 4.3: A W OMAN C OOKING B ESIDE T HE G RAVESTONE A ND M AY B E U SING I T .

Source: photographed by Mohamed Abd el-Ghany, Reuters

Not only did they accept their dead neighbors, they also had pride in them. For example, Ismail, a male interviewee has pride in his notable-dead-neighbor explaining that: The evilness is there only with the living. I prefer to live with the dead.

It is quieter in here. And I am lucky; I am neighboring princes and pashas. I used to tell this to my friends and then explain to them how.

The social hierarchy of the dead extends to the living too. It was interesting how the participants related themselves to their neighboring dead. While at the same time, it is questionable how they viewed themselves in relation to the neighboring informal district of Manshīyat Nāssir. They looked down on themselves in comparison to the neighboring informal settlement, and had pride knowing they share their spaces with notable dead (Figure 4.4). They believed it would be hard for anyone from Manshīyat Nāssir to marry for example a girl “down” here from the graveyards. Despite the underprivileged social conditions of the informal settlement residents, they still look down on the tomb inhabitants.

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F IGURE 4.4: P RINCESS S HWIKAR S HRINE T HAT W AS R EFERRED T O A S A N OTABLE D EAD N EIGHBOR .

Normalizing death came also in the form of the acceptance of death related prevailing myths.

When asked about the strangest story they heard since the time they came here, none of the respondents answered with anything but the idea of ghosts and the myths that the dead awaken from their graveyards. A male interviewee narrates that: I see one every day (by someone in that context, he meant a ghost). I look him in the eye and tell him: this is where I work and where I live.

I am not leaving it for you under any reason. Go away and let me work. Now, I am never scared of him, it is either me or him in here.

Another manifestation of the invisibility of death is a female inhabitant who was narrating how happy she was on her engagement day by celebrating it in the alleyway next to the tomb.

She does not see her residence at a tomb connecting her to a sacred dimension. When she was asked how it was like bringing in music and dances within the cemeteries; she claimed that she never thought about it this way, but rather, she thought that it was her “home� and that she has the absolute right to celebrate her engagement the way she wishes at her home (Figure 4.5). She was actually astonished by the question; as if it never crossed her mind that the dead have some rights in their shared space.

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F IGURE 4.5: A N E DITED P HOTOGRAPH T RYING T O V ISUALIZE T HE E NGAGEMENT I N T HE A LLEYWAY B ETWEEN T HE T OMBS .

F IGURE 4.6: V IEWS F ROM A BOVE A ND D OWN A T T HE Q UIET S TREET .

Invisible Life Traces Sometimes for a moment, viewing the Eastern Cemetery from above, from SalÄ h SÄ lim Street 4.1.1.1

or al-Azhar Park, one is dazzled by the elegance of its architectural masterpieces of domes and minarets. Only calmness is heard; there is little or even no car traffic, low density of houses, and pervading green. Minimal traces of living is viewed from above (Figure 4.6).

Observing that scene is a reminder of the sacred dimension associated with death. For moments, it sounds like that is the gift of the dead for the living. But, from below, that sacred view suppresses the struggles of its inhabitants and their daily footsteps. It hides their precarious and relatively powerless situation.

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Looking at that view from above is different than from below, it suppresses the struggles of its inhabitants and their daily footsteps. It hides their embraced new spaces. Even the acquired name of the “City of the Dead” neglects the fact that almost an alternative—living— city resides in it. However, those inhabitants embrace new spaces; it is just that those spaces are invisible from the “God-like” view from above.

Graveyard guardians are asked to leave no traces and become invisible. Cleaning–an activity of the everyday– in the context of the City of the Dead is not a mere routine. It is a manifestation of the conflict between the residents and the tomb owners. The inhabitants have the owners’ approval of living inside the tombs, and in turn, they are supposed to take care of them and clean them. They pay no rent. They always feel that they are threatened to leave if the owners came and found any house hold item out of its place.

Inhabitants tend to appropriate their homes—tombs—with whatever they see reflecting their identity; like, adding photographs, changing the colors or adding mosaics (Figure 4.7). The story of that tension was repeatedly mentioned by many interviewees, amongst which a lady participant explained: They (tomb owners) do not acknowledge that we are living with the dead, they do not appreciate that we clean, that we tile the space and paint it on our own expenses. What is wrong with flipflops left out there or with some unwashed clothes thrown on the floor? Is it not enough what we already struggle with?

F IGURE 4.7: A PPROPRIATION O F T HE I NTERIOR O F A T OMB B Y M OSAICS A ND W ALLPAPER .

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She sees that they are struggling even in the tiniest details of living in their home. She thinks that not because they do not pay rents that it does not cost them anything living there. She claims that they pay a lot of money to make the tomb more appropriate for living; like painting or tiling it. And this returns the benefit of free maintenance for the tombs on behalf of the owners, which they do not seemingly appreciate. The owners are enforcing their rules, of keeping everything minimal and in place all the time. Residents see this defying the norm of everyday living, it deprives them their right to manifest themselves in space. This is mediated in some cases where the residents reach an agreement with the owners that they inform them before their visits. That agreement requires the residents to clear the tombs from any living traces; and it also requires them to leave during the visit.

4.1.1 Sense of Home Dwelling is a process. Although not much physical traces of appropriation are apparent in the homes of the Eastern Cemetery; it is evident that there is an appropriation to the perception of home and what different meanings does it bear. The inhabitants unknowingly employ tactics that appropriate the given space according to their needs. The discussion of the sense of home in the coming section is divided into: 4.2.1.1 Extended sense of home, and 4.2.1.2 Work as home.

In “extended sense of home”, I am arguing that although at many times inhabitants are asked to hide their traces, their sense of a home and their practice of everyday domestic activities is not confined to the physical boundary of the indoor home. In work as home, I am arguing that in the case of the Eastern Cemetery, there is no difference between the space of home and that of work.

4.1.1.1 Extended Sense of Home In the Eastern Cemetery, in the case of inhabitants living in mausoleums, the outdoor

frontage of a tomb is usually a natural extension of the home activities that are supposed to be happening inside. And by “supposed to be happening inside”, this refers to domestic activities that are typically carried out indoors in Cairo (Figure 4.8). Amos Rapoport has demonstrated that the frontage of a house may be naturally extended as a semiprivate space that becomes an inseparable part of the home (Rapoport 1990).

Indoor and outdoor are spatial distinctions that are blurred during the everyday activities of the inhabitants of the Eastern Cemetery. Based on observation, the activity of cooking does not pay heed to what is built; there is no physical boundary of a kitchen. Sometimes, a part of [46]

the cooking process is located at the burial courtyard itself. But at other times, it happens in the frontage outdoor extension of the graveyard. However, very few times it was seen inside the tomb with the use of the gravestones as a working surface.

The eating place, too, changes smoothly according to the weather. If the weather is nice, a movable table is put in the alleyway in front of the tomb. When it is hot, inhabitants eat on the floor on the inside; because it is protected from the direct sunlight and heat.

F IGURE 4.8: A M AN S LEEPING I N T HE F RONTAGE O F A T OMB A MONGST G RAVESTONES .

Source: photographed by Mohamed Abd el-Ghany, Reuters

Interestingly, the “extended sense of home” allowed the qualities of a private atmosphere to be sensed in an outdoor space (Abdelmonem 2012); which becomes a semi-private inseparable part of their home. For example, the courtyard is appropriated to afford sleeping and living activities (Figure 4.9) and (Figure 4.10).

During the interviews, it was extracted that sleeping, especially for kids, is determined by the weather. In summer, they are used to staying awake till late at night, then get to sleep in the courtyard–which is inside the space of the house, yet an outdoor overlooked area. They claim they learnt to follow the shadow of the trees to protect themselves from the sun. By this, the indoor here acts as a gateway to the outdoor (Figure 4.11).

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F IGURE 4.9: A C OURTYARD A S A L IVING S PACE .

F IGURE 4.10: A P LANTED C OURTYARD H OSTING S OME D OMESTIC A CTIVITIES .

The mentioned activities which are mostly hosted outdoors have different degrees of privacy.

But those degrees vary according to different codes of using space. This by turn blurs another distinction which is public/private.

The hierarchy of privacy in the City of the Dead does not only apply to domestic spaces but also to streets. According to an interviewee, some streets are considered private and others [48]

public. That distinction was made according to the movement of vehicles in the City of the Dead. Any street easily accessible by a car is considered a public one and most probably not convenient for tomb living. Other streets, where cars do not pass by frequently, are private streets that can afford families to occupy tombs there.

F IGURE 4.11: T HE I NDOOR A S A G ATEWAY T O T HE O UTDOOR .

It was portrayed in the discussion of the boundary of indoor/outdoor that alleyways and tomb frontages are used as extension to homes. But, if alleyways “normally” would be considered public or semi-public areas, in the City of the Dead, they are considered as an extension for the private area. That is to say, the boundary of a private home in the Eastern Cemetery is determined by the access of cars9 (Figure 4.12). The home extends to the shared alleyways between the tombs, and ends at the sidewalk of the main street. Women may perform some daily household activities outdoors, in their extended homes. “Boundaries and thresholds change due to the accepted social practice”(Abdelmonem 2012, 40).

Rarely was it seen that windows were open to the outside (Figure 4.13). The sense of openness most of the time came from the connection between the indoor spaces of the home with the inner, usually beautifully planted, courtyard. It was interesting how inhabitants welcomed me as a guest to the courtyard, the most pleasant area of the home, by saying come here, come inside. As if the outdoor courtyard is the utmost inside of the home.

9

This applies to some informal houses in Cairo, and in some countryside houses too. This opens up a discussion about the attachment of the residents who are initially rural migrants about the similarities they see between their original homes and the tomb homes.

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Crossing the boundary is further exemplified by the dress code of women (Abdelmonem 2012, 41). Crossing it requires them to put on their veils or change their informal clothes. So, inside the realm of what women consider private; they will freely wear their informal clothes.

After crossing that perceived boundary, they may have to change their dress code. Taking this to the context of the study . . . when women cook in alleyways, their hair is uncovered and their outfit is more towards comfy informal. But when a stranger passes-by, particularly if a male figure, he should make any sound to ask for permission so that women wear their veils.

F IGURE 4.12: T HE B OUNDARY A S D ETERMINED B Y T HE A CCESS O F A C AR .

F IGURE 4.13: T YPICALLY , W INDOWS A RE C LOSED .

Moreover, there is an interesting blurring between the semi-public and semi-private realms of home. It is in the clothes that are exposed in the sun to get dry. They are usually hung in an area where they can be monitored by the inhabitants and at the same time in the area where they think still belong to their territory (Figure 4.14).

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F IGURE 4.14: E NTRY T O A N A LLEYWAY M ARKED B Y C LOTHES .

Some other daily activities are constituted public, and therefore they do not take place in the blurred boundary of the home. Although an alleyway is considered elsewhere a semi-public space where male socializing activities can take place, in the City of the Dead, it no longer affords to host socializing activities as it becomes an extension of the private home. For example, smoking shisha (water pipe) – a male socializing activity–is always at coffee houses located in streets and never at alleyways (Figure 4.15). Coffee houses are the only public territory affording males social gatherings.

F IGURE 4.15: T WO E XAMPLES O F M ALE C OFFEEHOUSES I N A P UBLIC S TREET .

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As for outsiders, it became part of the everyday for the inhabitants to see curious visitors to the City of the Dead. Tourists are the most favorable, they are so easily granted access to what should be constituted as private. They are allowed to take photographs; but, not showing any identification of the place like the name of the owners of the tomb. One of the interviewees was wondering about what fascinates tourists in their daily household activities; she questions why they photograph their food, or their washed clothes. She claims that she feels the tourists’ excitement about their private lives.

I visited an exemplar tomb but the inhabitants refused any sort of documenting it. What was special about it is that it afforded different generations of a family in multiple living spaces all grouped around the same courtyard. Once you are granted access from the main front door of the tomb, you are granted access to all the families. The courtyard here is considered as a semi-private area. And when gaining access to it, I was welcomed with the greeting twice: “welcome, get inside”. First, when I got inside from the main front door; then another “welcome when I got inside, get inside” that got me towards the courtyard.

4.1.1.2 Work As Home Minor architecture operates outside the formal economy and outside the official architectural

profession; but, inside the physical body of architecture. Work and home are intertwined in the City of the Dead. Not in a sense that inhabitants work from their home; but actually home is their work. That is to say, families (mainly women) who are care-takers for the tomb, have their jobs keeping their homes clean. They know quite well that cleaning the tombs is what secures their free stay in it. They are responsible for taking care of the plants, keeping their homes tidy and ready for any time for the family of the dead to visit.

The other main women job option is opening small confectionery outlets and selling goods.

This is usually a window that is overlooking the street, and operates only the time the female owner decides (Figure 4.16). Goods are usually stored inside the home, and the woman spends all the time inside the home too.

The Cemetery is a “soft spot” where “one is likely to find the more original role combinations, the more unpredictable careers, the less routine confluence of meanings” (AlIbrashy 2004). As for men, a majority work as car mechanics. This is commonly done at streets in front of the home especially in the areas with higher vehicular traffic. Based on [52]

observation, strangers’ cars stop at the boundary of the main street. Then, the mechanics take the car to their alleyway.

F IGURE 4.16: F EMALE O UTLET E XAMPLE .

I observed that a number of men who work as graveyard caretakers do not reside fully at the graveyard house. They are usually responsible for a group of tombs and their job is to come every morning and stay at one of them. They mentioned that they come and sit in peace, read Qura’n or just sleep. Nevertheless, they wait for any burial event to happen. If not, they return back to their homes outside the City of the Dead every night.

There is another significant male job in the City of the Dead. It does not happen inside the boundary of a home, but rather, in the extended area of it; the alleyways. It is the spinner or cord-maker. It has been there since long because of the proportions of the alleyway that allow for a length for the textiles to be extended (Figure 4.17).

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F IGURE 4.17: T HE S PINNING Y ARN W HEEL I N T HE A LLEYWAYS .

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4.2

Reflections on the Concluded Themes; Properties of the Spaces of the Everyday

This section discusses the two themes namely Invisibility and Sense of home; both relating to the use of space and the daily practices of the Cemetery’s inhabitants. It connects those themes and ties them with the previously discussed informing theory. It argues that the dynamics of negotiation differ according to the time of using the space, and that the physical spaces of the City of the Dead are agents in shaping its everyday experience. It also argues that the negotiation blurs the architectural dichotomies of indoor/outdoor, public/private, and work/home. This directly relates to the research’s main questions of exploring the negotiation between space and the everyday practices.

Multiple Meanings of Space and its Constant Change There is a contrast between experiencing the city in the streets and high above the ground, de 4.2.1.1

Certeau criticized the top-down view for seeing space as a frozen and static entity, neglecting the small dynamics that brings life to the city. The tangling of life and death in the inhabited cemeteries of Cairo, if I may use de Certeau’s words, has a certain “strangeness” that does not surface; creating a “migrational” space that slips into the readable one (de Certeau 2008, 91-93). It “captures” thoughts, feelings, and interpretation of meanings (Given 2008, xxix).

The everyday practices make inhabitants “accept” the given space, “turn it into their advantage, and metaphorize it.” Inhabitants perform acts of making within the already organized space.

The daily struggles of the inhabitants of the Eastern Cemetery show that regardless of the aforementioned struggles, many of the families have been living there for three or four generations. With their practices and footsteps, they were able to rewrite, redefine and appropriate their spaces after being excluded from the processes of planning and defining Cairo. They were able to win control over small spaces.

An inhabited tomb is always shifting between the three facets of space of perceived, conceived and lived. For example, the tomb owners have their strategy of always keeping it clean and ready for their visit. They perceive it as their ownership for hosting their dead family members. While at the same time, the inhabitants perceive the tomb as their home and their source of living at the same time. They personalize it subverting the wills of the owners resulting in the facet of the lived space. Those personalizations are the tactics they employ against the strategies of the owners. Moreover, they deal with death as if it is unnoticed paying no attention to the physical form and continue perusing their daily practices which represents the power those practices behold.

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According to de Certeau, space planners (in this case, the tomb owners) are “seeing the whole from a solar eye, looking down like a god”; they conceive the space to be lived in a life that they would never possess or understand as in his words; “It’s hard to be down when you are up” (de Certeau 2008, 91-93). The tomb custodians appropriate the conceived space of the tomb owners to tactically fulfill their needs or modify it according to their preferences.

This tension between owners and inhabitants can be described as a tension between turning the “smooth” spaces where inhabitants practice their daily life activities into strictly striated functional ones. This accords with Jill Stoner’s defining characteristic of “Minor architecture” which operates from “striated space” to “smooth space”. Striated space is the space of the state, which is segmented, has orders, laws, codes and logical orders; where smooth space is the Non-Euclidean one that would not exist without the other.

The inhabited tomb in that case is a bearer of a multiplicity of meanings that change with the change of the social setting. For instance, at the times of the visits, inhabitants are asked to leave the tomb so the meaning they have for their home changes.

Agency of Spatial Elements According to Lefebvre, space is a social product, or a complex social construction which 4.2.1.2

affects spatial practices and perceptions (Lefebvre 2009). The themes studied show a relationship where the dead can have a say in the lives of the inhabitants; with both of them occupying the same space. That relation might be explicit if explained within the understanding of Bruno Latour’s networks in describing any social setting; giving agency to both human and non-human actors equally (in this case might be the tomb space or a tombrelated physical object).

For example, viewing space as a heterogeneous network in an inhabited notable dead tomb changes the social setting of the inhabitants. The presence of an element like the buried princess’s bed in the tomb, made its inhabitants proud in where they reside. Moreover, it made them accept taking photographs of the place for what they believe of its value regardless what details of their everyday living it shows.

Viewing the space as a

heterogeneous network but at a micro scale revealed how the presence of a gravestone for example automatically changed the status of that area of the home being a semi-private not a private space.

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4.2.1.3 Blurring Spatial Dichotomies Following is a discussion of three major architectural dualities and how I found them blurring

in the everyday life practices of the inhabitants of the Eastern Cemetery. Those three dualities are indoor/outdoor, public/private, and work/home. The blurring of those dualities happened within the everyday setting, with space being an agent in the resultant social setting.

Building on my interviews and observations, I developed a diagram to display synchronized activity-space relationship (Figure 4.18). The classification of everyday living patterns was according to the type of activity (like sleeping, cooking, socializing‌etc). And the nature of space included the spatial dichotomies of (indoor or outdoor, public or private, work or home). This investigation was helpful in highlighting the agency of the practice or how that resulted in a different social setting.

Some activities that are more commonly hosted indoors in Cairo have been extended to the blurred outdoor boundary. It also shows the varying scale of privacy and the negotiated boundaries determining it. By this, it concludes that living within the cemeteries challenges some of the traditions that have been normalized in Cairo’s dwellings. Those resultant spaces of the everyday host a multiplicity of meanings that are in continuous flux according to what is happening in the everyday. This reflects the dynamic notion of the spaces of the everyday that transcend boundaries and thresholds.

The cooking and eating processes as previously discussed are not confined to a boundary.

They change smoothly whether from totally indoors to totally outdoors, and what is inbetween. Private spaces of houses open up considerably and merge with the alley. And actually privacy changes with the presence of an actor, or a stranger.

Sleeping too varies according to the weather, and it maybe practiced in the alleyway that is constituted a public space. One side of a sidewalk in the morning may be a socializing spot, and at night a sleeping one.

The courtyard is being interchangeably referred to as an inside space, though it is an outdoor area. Sometimes, it hosts private activities like sleeping and at other times it is visited by the owners making it a public area.

This questions the possibility of juxtaposing in a single space several incompatible spatial elements. Thus, what may be prohibited in the evening (e.g., visits to women’s quarters) may

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be allowed in the morning, as the location of boundaries and thresholds changed according to accepted social practice.

F IGURE 4.18: A N I LLUSTRATIVE S ECTION S HOWING A CTIVITIES A ND S PACE I N A N I NHABITED T OMB .

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5 Chapter Five: Social Dichotomies

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Chapter Five: Social Dichotomies This chapter namely Social Dichotomies integrates the field’s findings within the multiple perspectives the City of the Dead is mediated between. It argues that the City of the Dead is being dealt with polarity, and exploring the dynamics of its everyday practices reveals a blurred social dichotomy of its lived experience. That corresponds to the research’s secondary question. It narrates different stories, or perspectives, that the City of the Dead is mediated between. Those stories come from the history of the City of the Dead10, stories from the media, from the government, from the perspective of Islam, and stories from the perspective of its inhabitants. The stories are discussed in the form of the polarities of 5.2.1 Death and Life, and 5.2.2 Acceptable and Non-Acceptable. It is important to note that those two discussed binaries are only exemplar of the polarity and that they may be many others.

In a poem by Christopher Taylor as cited and translated in (Al-Ibrashy 2004) , he speaks of the City of the Dead as a liminal zone11. And the term liminal he used is one of the most commonly used to describe those hybrid types of spaces. He describes the City of the Dead as: Qarāfah contains two opposites this world and the hereafter, it is thus the best residence The profligate ignoring it, continues with his misdeeds while the ascetic roams its tombs We stayed there many a night and our companion was a tune from which a waterfall almost flows (Taylor 1998).

The everyday life in the City of the Dead is “the frontier that distinguishes and opposes the two worlds”( Al-Ibrashy 2004). It is a place of communication between the sacred and the secular; between the living inhabitants and the dead ones.

5.1.1

Death and Life … It is significant that while the city of the living at Fūstāt has long since disappeared, its city of the dead— much expanded—

10

Qualitative documents like newspapers or official reports are used in this section in addition to the review of the literature and the empirical research tools.

11 "Liminality", as defined by Victor Turner, is a “threshold state between the two main modalities of social relationship;…” as quoted in Al-Ibrashy.

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continues to house thousands of residents of the contemporary city (Abu-Lughod 2005, 22).

Back then, Abu Lughod referred to the strange paradox that the City of the Dead hosts more living than that of the living city of Fūstāt. In the City of the Dead, the relationship between the living and the dead is intertwined. The City of the Dead affords both: sanctity of death and profanity of life, and activities of the living and those of the dead.

The unconventional combination of death and life in the daily life of the inhabitants of the City of the Dead makes them sometimes stigmatized for their continued occupancy of a historic cemetery as shown in a magazine article in Figure 5.1. In other times, they are being looked at with an eye of sympathy for that they do not fully fit within the normalized dwelling traditions of their larger community despite their geographic proximity. As for sanctity and profanity, death—among most Cairenes—is related to the sacred dimension of life; and so the City of the Dead is negotiated between what is sacred and what is secular.

Other than funerary activities found only in the City of the Dead; there are also some other everyday activities that cannot be found elsewhere. For example, the number of shrines, mausoleums and mosques makes it a desired place to visit for its sacred; like the old acts of zīyārah, or just the touristic visits. Those activities tend to blend in with the everyday secular activities of living inhabitants. The presence of the past in a present that supersedes it but still lays claim to it: it is in this reconciliation that we see the essence of modernity (Augé 1995, 75).

Ibn ‘Uthman as quoted in Al-Ibrashy (2004) tells us that if one would want to know the Sharaf of the land (how honorable it is), he/she has to look to those who are buried in it.

Likewise, the Mamlūk governors dictated their wills to be buried beside their Shaykh’s. They even built complexes which included schools and khanqāhs not only mausoleums out of the belief that this would extend their good deeds after their death.

First, The City of the Dead’s sanctity comes not only from its use as a burial ground, but also from the history of its location at the Muqattam. The use of the edge of the Muqattam hill as a burial ground dates back to the Muslim conquest of Egypt (Hamza 2001, 46). According to Hani Hamza, the second Muslim Caliph did not permit Amr Ibn al-‘Aās—the first Muslim governor of Egypt—to sell the edge of the mountain to the departing Byzantine governor.

This was due to the former governor’s belief in its sacred association with some “seedlings” of paradise that are believed to have grown there.

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F IGURE 5.1: A M AGAZINE A RTICLE I N 2001 P RODUCING A N EGATIVE P ERCEPTION O F T HE C EMETERIES

Source: Al-Ibrashy, 2005

Form the Caliph’s perspective the (Muslim) believers were the only “trees” of paradise. He ordered Ibn al-‘Aās to use the area as a burial ground for Muslims (Stowasser 2014). Ibn al‘Aās was later buried there, along with five of the Prophet’s companions; which aroused the popular tradition that whoever is buried under the Muqattam goes straight to paradise without judgement (Hamza 2001, 46). Adding to this, some tombs were turned into shrines where the act of zīyārah became a common practice. Although this act was condemned by some religious scholars at times, the prayers performed there and the blessings sought around the shrines of religious figures have significantly extended the belief of the sanctity of the burial grounds.

The aforementioned sacred space is juxtaposed by a secular space—the space of the living.

According to officials, those “slums” are centers for social problems; so eviction will not only beautify the city, but also get rid of squatters who threaten the community (Fahmi and Sutton 2014, 24-27). That perception is foregrounded by how the Egyptian media portray life at City of the Dead – that the cemetery residents are criminals or social misfits.

For instance, in the famous movie of “Innī Lā Akdheb wa lakinnī atajammal” (I am not lying, I am prettifying), the protagonist was living a struggle to hide that he was residing the City of the Dead. He was refused by his colleagues and his lover for not fitting within their normalized perception of what home was. In this context, Kamal, one of the inhabitants during an interview confirms:

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I love the movie of Innī Lā Akdheb wa lakinnī atajammal. It accurately describes us; we are not criminals or drug dealers.

We are just misfits.

Adding to being considered misfits, according to Ansah, many strict Muslims consider living with the dead ḥarām (forbidden by Allāh) and often condemn the entire community for this activity (Ansah 2010, 23). This resulted in the continuous stigmatizing of inhabitants living there as committing a secular act. Such ideas have influenced the inhabitants’ perception that, one of the inhabitants during an interview quotes: Our stay here is the reason for why we are weighed with sins, and you ought to help us. Don’t you see, we get married over buried bodies. Every time someone else is buried in here, I feel shivers and that living here is something wrong. This has been the case since I first moved here with my mother-in-law a long time ago.

She thinks that she is overweighed with sins because she performs an act of her everyday life over the burial place in the tombs. However, Dar el Ifta’12, claims that as long their stay is out of their hands, Allah understands. The exact area above the tomb is the problematic zone, not only for marriage, but even for pursuing any sacred activity like praying. It is not allowed to pray above the tomb. But living nearby the burial area is not haram as long as the inhabitant has no choice. Fundamentalist Islam bans funerary structures and prayer on tombs, and views residential activities in proximity to graves as a desecration of the dead ( AlIbrashy 2013, 65).

The above discussion shows how the City of the Dead is a unique blend of both death and life, sacred and profane. And that the study of them provides deeper understanding of the phenomenon if not dealt with by polarity.

5.1.2

Acceptable and Non-Acceptable

Despite this evidence that the socio-economic profile of the tomb dwellers approximates to that of the poorer quarters of Greater Cairo, there still remains much social stigma attached to a cemetery address (Fahmi and Sutton 2014, 16). The popular perception of the inhabitants of the Cities of the Dead is still negative. They are still seen as a threat to social order. Tomb dwellers do not necessarily display different characteristics other than the majority of Cairo’s urban poor; however, the rest of the city's people do possess a negative image of cemetery people and this perception together with planner's future scenarios and the governmental 12

I made an interview with a Shaykh for an explanation of the religious perspective of the phenomenon.

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stances for the area have contributed to the further marginalization of the tomb dwellers (Fahmi and Sutton 2014,4).

The polarity of the inhabited City of the Dead being acceptable or not goes back to its history, too. For example, the government delegated the supervision of the cemetery areas and the control of them to local governors. Before Muhammad Ali and the project of westernizing Cairo, the cemeteries developed a “variety of morphologies”; that included graves marked by tombstones, canopies in open spaces, funerary mausoleums, and some non-funerary clusters (Al-Ibrashy 2005, 33-35). But, with Ali Mubarak’s rejection of the presence of the cemeteries close or within the city because that was a manifestation of unhealthy practices, the government took a more aggressive role for regulating burial and keeping it outside the city and also for discouraging non-funerary activities in the cemetery (Al-Ibrashy 2005,36-38).

According to zīyārah texts, many city dwellers maintained a relation to the space of the cemeteries and visiting it or living as it was an acceptable social practice. It was open to all people from different social status, occupation, or gender. In this sense, it used to form a public locus where power relations were manifested Ohtoshi (2006, 115). The scholars back then maintained a relation to the cemeteries through their writings and preaching; the ruling elite through holding communal prayers or through engaging in political struggles there. This is well reflected in an old saying of a Shaykh as cited in (Ohtoshi 2006, 114): “al-Qarāfah is the cemetery for Muslims, and no one individual can possess it, nor is one allowed to take [even] a portion of it for oneself”.

However, there was always conflict. The Sūfīs, for example, found refuge from the turmoil of the city in al-Qarāfah but strict scholars tried to prohibit the act of visiting the holy tombs and shrines. Women were also condemned for visiting the cemeteries by scholars, and at times prohibited by governments; but they never stopped. They used to seek holy mausoleums to fulfill their dreams through the mediation with holy saints buried in these tombs. The cemeteries retained their fame as “a spot for women to assemble” (Ohtoshi 2006, 113-116). Everyone had their own way of relating to the place, either by visiting, by living there, or by being buried there.

The previous discussion shows that everyone related to the cemeteries back then. But subversion was mainly performed by tomb dwellers. An example to this is portrayed through the literary work of Albert Cossery, in his novel “The Colors of Infamy” where he states:

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The cemetery is renowned since thousands of homeless moved in without asking anyone’s permission . . . he crossed the threshold of the mausoleum with the impression of entering into and completely different universe . . . The complete otherness of the cemetery home is imbued with magical qualities, being outside and marginal (although at the same time a quite real representation of the way many Egyptians live) and a place of resistance (Cossery 2011).

Karamallah, the main protagonist lost his work and home after publishing an unfavorable opinion about a Western ruler, so he had nowhere left to go except his family’s mausoleum at the City of the Dead. Instead of representing the poor as pitiful with no options, Cossery gives their willful occupation of the cemetery tombs a defiant subversive political act (Maynard-Ford 2011, 41).

A magazine interview conducted previously with a cemetery resident narrates: that she stands in front of the mirror and reflects upon her life, while her family sleeps huddled together in the narrow room. Then, sitting in the courtyard atop the burial chamber, she writes. Yet it is not only about her own uncommon living area that she writes. She also compares the people living within the necropolis with those living outside. Mona writes about discrimination she experienced in the preparatory school in the nearby Tonsy district. Only a few children from her elementary school in the cemetery make it to that preparatory school, and when they do, hell awaits them. “My female classmates from the Tonsy area regarded themselves as something better,” recalls Mona (Guerzoni 2009, 72).

Whereas public opinion views the residents of the cemeteries negatively, often blaming them for their poverty and destitution, they should be given recognition for their positive response towards their homelessness and related problems. Both government and Cairo's wider society should view the Cities of the Dead as problem areas but should take note of the way these people have created a community through their apparently marginalized and illegal society.

(Fahmi and Sutton 2014, 24-27). A more positive recognition of the Cities of the Dead by the wider Cairene society would serve to remove some of the stigma attached to their residents and could greatly improve the psychological outlook of the people involved.

Illegal occupancy of tombs is widely rejected by governments, tomb owners, and a combination of municipalities. Yet, another -formal- scenario is, accepting the existing tombs as “unconventional housing stock”, and integrating the cemeteries with the “conventional spontaneous urbanization” of the neighboring informal settlement; i.e. Manshīyat Nāssir.

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Galila al-Kadi argues that opposition politicians tend to over-estimate the squatter population there (El Kadi and Bonnamy 2001, 269). This makes it more likely that nothing will be done to the current situation, despite all its inadequacies. Even though the inhabitants of the City of the Dead are ostracized from society and marginalized from mainstream political, economic and social opportunities; they have shown tremendous amounts of imagination and adaptability in meeting their daily challenges. Following is a narration of a participant, who resided the City of the Dead for fifty years: This was our family’s burial grounds, until our home collapsed in al-Gamāliyyah. We made tents in the mosque of al-Mo‘ezz for almost a year, listening to the government’s promises of relocation. After nothing was done, our grandpa decided to split our family’s tomb into two; one part for our living and the other part for our dead. The government provided me with all the services I need here, electricity, water and telephone; in an expression of sympathy that we are living amongst the dead.

Jeffrey Nedoroscik questions whether reclaiming valuable land or improving the conditions of a significant segment of Cairo’s “urban poor” should be of greater importacnce (Nedoroscik 1997, 101). The government’s attempts for “beautifying” Cairo involve clearing the central areas of the city from the presence of the urban poor as seen in Figure 5.2 for Cairo’s 2050 plan; with the claim that it is to be done with concern for the welfare of the “less favored” families (Fahmi and Sutton 2014, 23). The cemetery people, whom even the cheapest legal housing form is beyond their reach, are forced to enter the illegal housing markets. They have a weak legal position to fight eviction (Fahmi and Sutton 2014, 24). The reasons for the failure of the eviction plans as cited in (Fahmi and Sutton 2014, 26-27) are “no warning, no consultation, no compensation and no provision for resettlement”.

Ironically, during the 2011 revolution, the City of the Dead provided Cairenes with the legitimacy to argue that the previous regime has dulled the lives of people to the extent it made them live in graveyards (Kardoush 2013).

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F IGURE 5.2: C AIRO ' S 2050 P LAN , R EMOVAL O F T HE C EMETERIES

Source: Al-Ibrashy, 2005

But again, no action was taken. Even charity organizations that used to provide food/money in special occasions like Ramadan or feasts stopped after the 2011 revolution. That is probably because of the rise in street crime rate that has been reported since then (Holdstock 2012) which made volunteers scared to access the space of the City of the Dead with its narrow alleyways and un-surveilled spaces.

“We thought that the uprising will improve our living conditions. but after three years the situation is getting worst. I hope the government would support us by consolidating the security situation, despite the fact that they [officials] want us out of the area.” (Fahmi and Sutton 2014, 23).

“We have demonstrated few times and have blocked the autostrade to let the government realize our demands. We need some security back in the area so we can work safely .” (Fahmi and Sutton 2014, 23).

On one hand, the government failed to provide appropriate housing alternatives, stigmatized the residents and publicly mentioned their eviction; yet, it provided them in the City of the Dead legal electricity, schools, a police station and paved roads, among other formal services.

On the other hand, inhabitants are fully aware of the negligence and inability of state institutions to fulfill their needs in a relatively adequate time. That is why they accept the minimal provisions, and favor their geographic proximity over the complete services.

Inhabitants work on fulfilling what is missing, i.e.: they illegally tap some services until eventually provided to them legally; like electricity. Other than electricity, inhabitants made [67]

an agreement with a local sewage worker to collect the toilets waste from their primitive Trenches because they cannot afford trucks, and because the sewage problem is still kept unsolved. By this, a job opportunity is granted to one of the residents and the area is kept clean. Electricity and water have long since been provided, and schools and hospitals built in abandoned tombs (Guerzoni 2009, 72).

With the inhabitants’ awareness of their different informality, they do not see they can belong to any-normal-informal settlement. For example, one of the female interviewees quotes: I was living up in Manshīyat Nāssir before, but there was no privacy. It was unsafe and violence prevailed. I got used to the calm environment here and to people minding their own businesses. My family and I even saved an amount of money enough to get an apartment in a satellite city, but at the last moment I changed my mind. I will not find that peace anywhere else, plus children are more worthy of that money for their education.

She sees that the peace she finds in the City of the Dead cannot be found in any other informal settlement; other settlements are “violent” for her. She sees that she was able to make advantage of the existing “opportunities” and prioritizes her needs in a way that is closer to her daily life, i.e. putting the provision of the children’s education ahead of switching to the normalized Cairene pattern of residence.

The relationship between the formal strategies and the informal practices challenges the stereotype of informal/formal which co-exists not negating each other. But, resistance is sometimes romanticized and overemphasized. It is questioned to what extent the stories of the powerless and their discourse may reveal hidden power structures (Kuppinger 1998, 2). It is true that the inhabitants were informally able to tap their needed services and win control over some spaces, but that does not mean they always win. The failure of the officials leave the urban poor with nothing but having to come up with their own solutions.

The dilemma of the Cities of the Dead cannot be resolved without a transformation of the average Cairene's attitude towards their squatter inhabitants. Both government and Cairo's wider society should cease to regard the Cities of the Dead as problem areas but should take note of the way these people have created a community through their apparently marginalized and illegal society. The squatter settlements of the Cities of the Dead represent a positive response by urban poor and by rural in-migrants to the deficiencies in social and economic [68]

services within Egyptian society. A more positive recognition of the Cities of the Dead by the wider Cairene society would serve to remove some of the stigma attached to their residents and could greatly improve the psychological outlook of the people involved.

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6 Chapter Six: Conclusion, Limitations and Further Questions

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Chapter Six: Conclusion, Limitations and Further Questions 6.1

Concluding Summary

This thesis is interested in exploring the negotiation between space and everyday life. It sees the phenomenon of inhabiting the cemeteries of Cairo a relevant site for exploration. The research raises two main questions concerning this phenomenon. They aim to explore the dynamics of the negotiation between both, everyday life practices and architectural space, in the City of the Dead of Cairo. The third, secondary, question aims to show how putting together different narratives about the phenomenon results in a new understanding, a one that defies the polar-ism of thought that much of the reviewed literature was relying on.

In order to address those research questions and aims, Chapter Two started to explore theories that discuss space, and everyday life, and the negotiation between both. These were used as an interpretative lens for the research. First, the chapter discussed the problematic of defining the everyday and its suggested definitions, the literature argued that it shall be defined by what is not rather than by what it is. It discussed also an important property of the everyday, which is, it full of binaries. It also discussed how it may on the surface appear as being banal and mere routine; but it beholds a subtle power and resistance. The study moved on to the significance of studying the everyday for architecture that lies in the allowance of questioning space in new ways that defy some architectural categories or hierarchies. It then projected the work of thinkers as Henri Lefebvre, Michel de Certeau, and Jill Stoner, whose work come to intersect with the properties of the spaces of the everyday. At the end, the theoretical chapter ends with questioning the idea of agency of space in the context of the everyday. It concluded with a dual relationship; both space influencing the everyday, and the everyday practices appropriating space.

Chapter Three highlighted that qualitative research seems best suited for the aim and questions. The study conducted its field work in the Eastern Cemetery of the City of the Dead. The chapter first gave a brief introduction about the phenomenon of inhabiting the cemeteries generally. It also located the researcher in order to show how previous ideas shaped the interpretations of the finding. It then discussed the procedures of data collection, and analysis. Data collection relied on unstructured interviews and observations. The collected data was reviewed multiple times at a general scale, with words that were believed to relate to the questions, highlighted. Then the similar words were grouped together formulating themes that constitute the research’s findings.

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Chapter Four identified two themes13 namely Invisibility and Sense of home summarized as: Invisibility: this extracted theme of invisibility was discussed on two levels. The first was normalization of death; and the second was the invisibility of any living traces of inhabitants.

This was discussed basing upon the ideas of Michel de Certeau, tactics and strategies. How the tomb owners may sometimes want to enforce their strategies on the inhabitants of the tombs and apply some rules on them that removes any traces of their living. Inhabitants, on the other hand, resist this by their banal everyday practices and routines; like the act of cleaning for example.

Meanwhile, death goes unnoticed too. Events like marriages taking place in the cemetery juxtaposes in a single place and time many spatial elements that cannot go together. The agency of space in such the mentioned cleaning example succeeded in blurring the distinction between the architectural dichotomy of work and home.

Sense of home: the sense of home in the investigated cemeteries was shaped by a lot of things. That is to say, according with the studied theory, it hosted a multiplicity of meanings.

The social hierarchy of the dead for example, extends to the living too. It was surprising how the participants had pride in their notable dead neighbors or how a female celebrated her engagement there for instance. While at the same time, it is questionable how they viewed themselves in relation to the neighboring informal district of Manshīyat Nāssir. When asked, once they thought they prefer living in the cemeteries for it is quieter and everyone is “minding their own business”. On the other hand, they looked down to themselves in comparison to the neighboring informal settlement. They believed it would be hard for anyone from there to marry for example a girl “down” here from the graveyards.

Reflecting on those themes within the theoretical understanding reveals that the banal everyday practices of the tomb dwellers made an interesting blurring of some architectural dichotomies. The ones discussed here are indoor/outdoor, public/private, and work/home.

Analysis shows that the resultant space may not be labeled either-or those dichotomies, neither in-between them, but rather something new that encompasses them both.

For example, in indoor and outdoor spatial distinctions, discussion showed that they are blurred during the everyday activities of the inhabitants of the Eastern Cemetery. Activities like cooking do not pay heed to what is built; there is no physical boundary of a kitchen.

13

The analysis of those themes are presented as a diagram in Appendix A

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Sometimes, a part of the cooking preparation process is located at the burial courtyard itself.

But at other times, it happens in the frontage outdoor extension of the graveyard. However, very few times it was seen inside the tomb with the use of the coffins as a worktop surface.

Chapter five named Social Dichotomies then includes the findings of that research into the existing literature about the City of the Dead but in a critical way. Critical because, it portrays the phenomenon of living with the dead as always polarized between different binaries. The discussion juxtaposes different perspectives to reveal that life in the City of the Dead cannot be polarized; it is rather something having both and more. The review of the literature was the last step of the study’s phases. According to Creswell, these could either be the researcher’s personal interpretation according to his/her own culture and experiences. It can also be a comparison of the findings with the literature. They can ask more questions or form interpretations that work as agendas for change (Creswell 2009, 190). The discussed social binaries were life/death, and accepted/non-accepted, summarized as: Life/death: The City of the Dead is a place of communication between the sacred and the secular; between the living inhabitants and the dead ones. They are some activities that do not occur elsewhere outside the City of the Dead, but those activities tend to blend in with the everyday secular activities of living inhabitants. Activities related to death like funerary activities and manifestation of grief, are a normal repeated everyday scene in the City of the Dead; along with the Qura’n reciters, who are constant no matter what changes happen to the community. It can be claimed that death has been normalized by the inhabitants. It became a normal part of their everyday landscape to the extent that it may go unnoticed. The living inhabitants were able to creatively change the use of the wood coffins into ironing boards, dinner tables, benches, and beds.

Acceptable/non-acceptable: This section argued that even though the inhabitants of the City of the Dead are ostracized from society and marginalized from mainstream political, economic and social opportunities; they have shown tremendous amounts of imagination and adaptability in meeting their daily challenges. Yet the dilemma of the Cities of the Dead cannot be resolved without a transformation of the average Cairene's attitude towards their squatter inhabitants. Whereas public opinion views the residents of the cemeteries negatively, often blaming them for their poverty and destitution, they should be given recognition for their positive response towards their homelessness and related problems. Both government and Cairo's wider society should cease to regard the Cities of the Dead as problem areas but [73]

should take note of the way these people have created a community through their apparently marginalised and illegal status.

6.2 Limitations and Further Questions ‌ And I hear, from your voice, the invisible reasons which make cities live, through which perhaps, once dead, they will come to life again (Calvino 1978, 136).

Several issues were limiting to this research. However, these limitations pose more questions and by turn open up possibilities for future research.

First, the study was limited by the sensitivity of the context. Perhaps because of the overprotective or defensive reactions of the participants, at many times, I was not successful in ice-breaking or in building connections between myself and the participants. Having a more intimate relation with any of the families would have exposed me more to the in-depth investigation of the real every day practices that they conduct involuntarily without knowing some strange researcher is observing.

Gender-oriented culture in the area of the study imposed limitations on my access. My access to male community in more or less public spaces was not achieved until I had a male company during my walks. On the other hand, my access to the female communities inside the homes was facilitating my understanding of some gestures, and being more engaging in topics that women of the City of the Dead care about like marriage.

The scale of the studied area is also a limitation to the study. This raises the question of the different findings that I may have obtained if this thesis was conducted on a larger urban scale. Moreover, the fieldwork was limited to only an area of one of the three historic cemeteries. And inside that area, it was limited to one housing typology. It would be interesting to question the perception of those who neighbor the tombs, not inhabit them.

Moreover, it would be interesting to study the areas surrounded by the monuments.

Monuments raise some questions too; because, it is not only their architectural value, historical or symbolic value, but also the stories they hide in their walls. They represent people, achievements, and events, and together with other things produce a narrative of historic Cairo.

Field investigation was specific to normal everyday life events. But this raises more questions about the affordance of spaces in the unusual days of festivals, Ramadan, or the days when [74]

burial happens. Field investigation was conducted in a specific year, so projects appearing in the area and the effect they are making to the space were not taken into consideration.

At the end, this research raises future questions about approaching a study of the everyday because of the difficulty of generalizing some peculiarities of the everyday. The specifity of the “everyday” literature that was produced for a specific context at a specific time: The researcher is informed by literature concerning the everyday studies; but knows that everything about those theories cannot be generalized. Though, this may be defied by de Certeau’s claim that daily practices can be addressed not at the level of content but at the level of form; creating a “grammar” of everyday practices. This gives a little space for generalizability.

My interpretations of the research and its findings make me question the degree or balance through which the multiple roles of the cemetery area be preserved without compromising the social and psychological effects on the inhabitants living in so much proximity with the dead.

I am also questioning the idea of tourism, how can such an interest to the architectural masterpieces of it increase without putting the privacy of the inhabitants at stake. How can we find alternative plans to the calls or the forces of economic development that view the cemetery as a wasted area and a potential for development, and at the same time not falling in the trap of wanting to preserve everything, even if at the peripheral areas with less historical and architectural value. How do we, in the middle of all these variables, provide the maximum respect for the dead and the present residents.

I am questioning the name, I myself, have used as a title for this thesis and its contribution to the stigma attached to the cemetery. Emphasis is always made on how the tomb dwellers are a source of shame on the society; and more dramatized by media. Nowhere does the general public refer to this as a historical phenomenon worth investigation and actually, sometimes, providing better conditions than other informal settlements.

I conclude this study by arguing that The City of the Dead accommodates part of Cairo’s poor who turned a temporary residence into permanent homes to the extent that nowadays, there are third generation tomb inhabitants. That process of dwelling when studied critically reveals an added layer of describing how everyday practices and space negotiate. That by turn challenges the understanding of some architectural dichotomies long taken-for granted.

The discussion of binaries challenges the traditional concepts of looking at socio-spatial phenomena. It shows how blurred the lived experience really is, which by turn might provide [75]

a more meaningful understanding to the complexity and sophistication of socio-spatial relationships.

Moreover, it views space not as a static entity but rather as a heterogeneous network that is always at a continuous change. I hope that this research contributes to a different way of investigating space and everyday life practices; which might acknowledge architects to question spaces in new ways.

[76]

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[81]

8 Appendix A

Themes Analysis

[82]

9 Appendix B Participants Overview Sanaa Ismail

-

Sayyid

Fathy

-

Mona

Basma

-

Layla

Reda and her husband

-

[83]

Female 40s to 50s Responsible for 2 daughters and a son Un-educated No other job Male 50s to 60s 2 daughters and 2 sons Diploma holder His sons work in construction He works at a governmental institution Male 50s His family lives outside the cemeteries but he fully resides there Preparatory education Graveyard caretaker Female Preparatory education 40s Confectionary owner Responsible for her children and grandchildren Female 50s Responsible for her daughter, son, and mother in-law No other job and un-educated Female 20s Living with her family Secondary education No job and will get married inside the cemeteries A family with 2 daughters He is a chef, she is responsible for the tomb He is educated, she is not 2 daughters are college educated

Fateema

-

Mohsen

Yassin

[84]

Female Responsible for the family of 2 sons and a daughter, all in education 50s Doesn’t work outside the cemeteries Male 60s Spinner Un-educated Sent his family outside the cemeteries Male 30s Educated 2 young daughters Works outside the cemeteries

‫ملخص الرسالة‬ ‫تهدف هذه الرسالة الى البحث فى العالقة بين ممارسات الحياة اليومية والفراغ المعمارى‪ ،‬وكيفية تمثيل هذه الممارسات فى‬ ‫العمارة‪ .‬وقد رأى البحث فى قرافة القاهرة وسطا مناسبا لدراسة هذه العالقة‪ .‬يتسائل البحث‪ ،‬كيف تؤثرالممارسات اليومية‬ ‫لساكنى القرافة على فراغاتها المعمارية وفى نفس الوقت كيف تؤثر هذه الفراغات بطبيعتها الخاصة على الممارسات‬ ‫اليومية لساكنيها‪ .‬اعتمد البحث على ثالثة مراحل‪ .‬أولها كان القراءة التحليلية لنظريات تبحث فى العالقة المتبادلة بين‬ ‫الفراغ والممارسات اليومية‪ .‬اعتمدت هذه المرحلة بشكل كبير على قراءات (‪ )Henri Lefebvre‬و (‪)Bruno Latour‬‬ ‫التى ساهمت فى االستعداد للمرحلة الثانية‪ .‬المرحلة الثانية كانت العمل الميدانى فى القرافة الشرقية بالقاهرة‪ .‬اعتمدت هذه‬ ‫المرحلة على التحليل النوعى للمقابالت المتعمقة مع بعض من ساكني القرافة‪ ،‬واعتمدت ايضا على المالحظة االستطالعية‬ ‫ألنماط الفراغات واسخداماتها المختلفة‪ .‬أما المرحلة األخيرة‪ ،‬فكانت القراءة التدقيقية االنتقادية لألدبيات السابقة عن ظاهرة‬ ‫سكن القرافة بعد مقارنتها بالتجربة الحقيقية لساكنيها‪ .‬وقد وجد هذا البحث أن الفراغ المعمارى فى هذا السياق يحمل العديد‬ ‫من المعانى التى تتغير بتغير المستخدم وطبيعة عالقته بالمكان‪ .‬وهذا يشير الى احتمالية وجود طرق مختلفة للبحث فى‬ ‫معانى الفراغات المعمارية‪ .‬وقد وجد البحث ايضا أن فهم ممارسات الحياة اليومية يتجاوز الفهم الحالى المبسط للفراغ‬ ‫المعمارى‪.‬‬

‫األكاديميه العربيه للعلوم و التكنولوجيا و النقل البحرى‬ ‫كلية الهندسة و التكنولوجيا‬ ‫قسم الهندسة المعمارية و التصميم البيئي‬ ‫(فرع القاهرة)‬

‫الفراغ المعمارى وممارسات الحياة اليومية فى قرافة‬ ‫القاهرة‬ ‫إعداد‬

‫ريم عالء الدين محمد صبحى‬ ‫رسالة مقدمة‬ ‫لألكاديميه العربيه للعلوم و التكنولوجيا و النقل البحرى‬ ‫الستكمال متطلبات الحصول على درجة‬ ‫الماجستيرفى الهندسة المعماريه و التصميم البيئى‬ ‫تحت إشراف‬

‫د‪ .‬شريف الفقى‬

‫د‪ .‬احمد العنتبلى‬

‫أستاذ‬ ‫قسم الهندسة المعمارية والتصميم البيئي‬ ‫األكاديمية العربيى للعلوم و التكنولوجيا و النقل‬ ‫البحرى بالقاهرة‬

‫أستاذ مساعد‬ ‫قسم الهندسة المعمارية والتصميم البيئي‬ ‫األكاديمية العربيى للعلوم و التكنولوجيا و النقل‬ ‫البحرى بالقاهرة‬

‫‪2019‬‬