(Re)connecting with Wounded Spaces: Encountering Memory, Place and Narrative in Cairo’s Historic Landscape

This article situates its discussion of spatial memory within the idea of “absence” in understanding the role of centralized powers in the everyday landscape. It examines one of Cairo’s historic districts at a time when it became “empty” due to a soaring urban transformation that never materialized. Yet, its glorious fourteenth-century palaces, houses and spaces were thoroughly haunted by neglect and decline, creating a realm of nonexistence and wounds in the neighborhood landscape. This chapter also builds on the discussions of alternative models of the city by interrogating the concept of wounded spaces and the evolution of intergenerational places. By employing ethnographic fieldwork and conducting in-depth semi-structured interviews, I suggest that new forms of public memory could be structured and transferred among communities through intergenerational social outreach that allows social stability and security, despite the ongoing ruptures of geographical exclusion and segregation.