In the early 20th century Cairo was a vibrant and booming global metropolis. The integration of Egypt into the global market had led to rapid urban growth and increased migration. As occupational prospects for women outside the family were limited, sex work became a prominent feature of the new modern city. However, the economic and social changes in Egypt ignited national anxieties about racial degeneration, social disorder and imperial decadence. Francesca Biancani argues here that this was a period of national crisis that became inscribed on the bodies on female sex workers.
Based on a wide range of rare primary sources, including documents from court cases, reformist papers, police minutes and letters, Biancani examines the discourses around sex workers and shows how prostitution was understood in colonial Egypt. The book argues that from initially regulating and managing prostitution, local and colonial elites began to depict sex workers as a threat to the physical and moral welfare of the rising Egyptian nation. However, far from being a marginal activity, prostitution is shown to play a central role in the history of Egyptian nation-making. By exploring the interdependence of power and marginality, respectability and transgression, Biancani writes sex work and its practitioners back into the history of modern Egypt. The book is an original contribution to the global history of prostitution and a vital resource for scholars of Middle East Studies.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Notes on Transliterations
Acronyms
Introduction- The Making of Modern Prostitution in Egypt
1 Selling Sex in a Changing City
1a Urban Transformation
1b Women and Labour
1c Migration
1d Conclusions
2 The Geography of Sex Work
2a Zoning
2b Conclusions
3- Regulating Prostitution and Counting the Population
3a Labelling
3b Counting
3c Medicalizing
3d Confinement
3e Racialization and the Colonial Order
Conclusions
4- Sex Work Beyond Prostitution
4a 'Let down the curtains around us': the Kharakhana
4b Disguised Prostitution, nightlife, and legal loopholes
4c Clandestine sexwork
4d Pimps
4e Subalternity, Sex Work and Agency
4f Conclusions
5- Imperial War, Venereal Disease, and Sex Work
5a Men in Town
5b The Battle of the Wass#a
5c Martial men, venereal women
5d The 1916 Purification
5e The Debate About Prophylaxis
5d Imperial Troops and Brothels
5e Conclusions
6 Policing 'suspect' femininities: the work of British Purity Movements in Cairo
6a The 'Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon' , Brief History of a Moral Panic
6b Social Purity in Egypt, the IBS Committee
6c Beyt #Arabi
6d Competing Approaches: the AMSH
6e Egyptian Feminism and the Struggle against Prostitution
6f Conclusions
7 Abolitionism and Nationalism on the Political Agenda
7a Nationalism and the Rise of an Imagined Egyptian Nation in the Press
7b Gender and Danger in Cairo
7c When Virtues Scream: the 'Fight Against Prostitution'
7d The Making of a National Villain: Ibrahim el Gharbi
7e Bringing Abolitionism In (THE FOLLOWING SUB-SECTION IN THE PREVIOUS DRAFT HAS BEEN MOVED HERE)
7 f Paternalist Humanitarianism and the Repeal of Licensed Prostitution
7 g conclusions
CONCLUSION
