Beyond the Bounds of the State: Reinterpreting Cairo’s Infrastructures of Mobility

Mobility in Cairo is characterized by junctures of residents who redefine connectivity beyond the city’s spatial arrangements of tangible networks. This article presents Cairo as a mesh of invisible relations between material infrastructure, lives, and practices. Egypt’s governing systems have, for many years, neglected to tackle inequality, particularly since the political turmoil of the January 2011 revolution. Cairo’s urban landscape is now one of fluctuating realities. Spates of laws prohibiting gatherings and committees, demographic neighbourhood shifts, uncontrolled urban growth, and arbitrary traffic and planning regulations have had palpable impacts on mobility patterns. This article shows that neoliberal spatial boundaries such as satellite compounds and large transport corridors have produced unequal relations of power and inclusivity. As marginalized citizens circumvent such boundaries and construct social solidarities to support their daily livelihoods, they reveal networks of resistance and subversion. Material infrastructures, deeply embedded in everyday politics and social relations, become key conceptual instruments in understanding how residents negotiate their freedoms in Cairo. Their ability to move from one sphere to another, whether social and cultural, or through a reinterpretation of public and private structures defines their right to the city outside formal governmental institutions