Mrovlje, M orcid.org/0000-0003-3721-3141 (2024) Disappointed Hope: Reimagining Resistance in the Wake of the Egyptian Revolution. Journal of Politics, 86 (1). pp. 54-66. ISSN 0022-3816
Abstract
Ten years after the revolutionary upheaval, the Arab Spring in Egypt has come to signify a betrayed promise of liberation, repudiating the feasibility of resistance against oppression. Against the fatalist narratives of the uprising, I examine the politically transformative potential of disappointment. I draw on Ernst Bloch’s notion of educated hope and recent interventions in utopian studies to interrogate how resisters can reconfigure their horizon of hope in response to disappointment. I argue that the resisters’ grappling with their disappointment can redirect their hope toward a persistent striving for greater freedom and justice that is based on a concrete negotiation of the possibilities for action and willing to bear the risk of failure. I develop the political relevance of disappointed hope through a selected firsthand account of the Arab Spring uprising in Egypt, Cairo: Memoir of a City Transformed, written by a prominent Egyptian activist and writer Ahdaf Soueif.
Metadata
Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 Southern Political Science Association. This is an author produced version of an article published in The Journal of Politics. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | disappointment; horizon of hope; resistance; Arab Spring in Egypt; Ahdaf Soueif |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law (Leeds) > School of Politics & International Studies (POLIS) (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 24 Feb 2023 11:08 |
Last Modified: | 05 Feb 2024 16:01 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | University of Chicago Press |
Identification Number: | https://doi.org/10.1086/726935 |
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