The Three Temporalities of Student Politics in Egypt

Defining historical events, William Sewell argues that “Lumpiness, rather than smoothness, is the normal texture of historical temporality” (Sewell 1996, 843). Drawing on fieldwork conducted among student activists in Egypt regarding their activities since 2011, and observations of several groups from 2013 to 2015, this paper examines the ‘lumpiness’ of that period, where change and continuity interweave. It explores how modes of action, claims, and imaginaries reflect various intertwined temporalities. I argue that three temporalities shape student politics in Egyptian universities and underlie activists’ modes of action and discourse: The first temporality relates to the long-term historical political charge associated with student status. It reflects a history of student protests throughout the twentieth century and the context in which the higher education sector emerged—particularly its intersections with state-building, modernization, and the struggle for national independence (Tejel 2013, Farag 2007). The second temporality pertains to the neoliberal shift in higher education dating back to the 1990s, marked by reform programs emphasizing managerial performance measures, privatization and semi-privatization of public universities, and, crucially, emphasizing the role of universities in professionalizing students and preparing them for a competitive labor market. The third is the ‘eventful temporality’ (Sewell 1996), which, in this context, is dual: it encompasses the 2011 revolution that brought unprecedented openness to collective action and political organization, and the subsequent 2013 coup d’état, which curtailed this political effervescence (Allal and Vannetzel 2017). This paper presents three examples to illustrate how these temporalities shape student politics in Egypt: First, I demonstrate how the legacy of historical student mobilizations, particularly those of the 1970s, resonated with activists after the revolution and the coup d’état. In a dialectic relationship between past and present, students incorporated symbols from past mobilizations into their own protests, merging them with claims and modes of action from the revolution. In a context of repression, this legacy represented simultaneously a source of hope, a burden, and a cautionary example to be avoided. Secondly, I show how the neoliberal imaginary—focused on professionalization and suspicious of politicization—intertwined with revolutionary aspirations to remake the social order and create a new reality. This manifested as student activists reclaimed unions, historically co-opted by the regime, and debated what a revolutionary union should look like and achieve. Finally, I highlight the impact of the dual eventful temporality on demobilization. The sudden shift in conditions for collective action delayed demobilization, as some actors, having lived through the revolution, initially expected to retain a margin of action. However, the gradual realization of the stark contrast between the pre- and post-coup periods added an emotional burden to the toll of repression, deepening the sense of despair and resignation accompanying demobilization. In this context, preserving even a vague memory of the revolution became the only priority.