ABOUT THIS BOOK

In Politics in the Crevices, Sarah El-Kazaz takes readers into the world of urban planning and design practices in Istanbul and Cairo. In this transnational ethnography of neighborhoods undergoing contested rapid transformations, she reveals how the battle for housing has shifted away from traditional political arenas onto private crevices of the city. She outlines how multiple actors—from highly capitalized international NGOs and corporations to city dwellers, bureaucrats, and planning experts—use careful urban design to empower conflicting agendas, whether manipulating property markets to protect affordable housing or corner luxury real estate. El-Kazaz shows that such contemporary politicizations of urban design stem from unresolved struggles at the heart of messy transitions from the welfare state to neoliberalism, which have shifted the politics of redistribution from contested political arenas to design practices operating within market logics, ultimately relocating political struggles onto the city’s most intimate crevices. In so doing, she raises critical questions about the role of market reforms in redistributing resources and challenges readers to rethink neoliberalism and the fundamental ways it shapes cities and polities.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Sarah El-Kazaz is Associate Professor in the Department of Politics and International Studies, SOAS, University of London.

REVIEWS

“In this brilliant, theoretically astute, and thoughtful multisited ethnography, Sarah El-Kazaz explains how the markets for housing in Cairo and Istanbul have been forged by historical and political forces. She shows how the displacement of urban politics onto the ostensibly apolitical milieus of tourism, heritage, and community affects struggles over housing and the right to the city in these two world metropolises. This book is a crucial contribution to our understanding of the politics of urban planning under neoliberalism.”

-- Laleh Khalili, Professor of International Politics, Queen Mary University of London

“In this rich political ethnography Sarah El-Kazaz asks how neoliberal modes of government have reshaped forms of urban politics in ways that challenge common assumptions about neoliberalism. The key terms of neoliberal politics—private ownership, value, interest, and property—are not, as it turns out, fixed and uniform concepts but in each case open to contestation and redefinition. With an innovative argument, superior research, and broad appeal, Politics in the Crevices offers a detailed and convincing account of these dynamics at work.”

-- Timothy Mitchell, author of Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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