Upper Egyptian women and performance

Abstract

This thesis examines how Upper Egyptian women negotiate a space, through performance, in the public and private spheres of Egypt. The aim is to use my position as an Egyptian woman to produce an account of some of the different manifestations of patriarchy, which may be affecting Upper Egyptian women’s lives, and which can possibly be embodied in their performative practices. With this examination, I aim to bring to the surface the rich cultural heritage of Upper Egypt, where women are active participants, and which has been disregarded from mainstream Western performance discourses. Furthermore, I aim to contribute to a better understanding of the lived experiences of Upper Egyptian women and their distinctive and contextual negotiation strategies, which are both ignored and marginalised from feminist discourses. Accordingly, I attend their performative events as well as interview them to give voice to the situatedness of their lived experiences and to gain a better understanding. This allows for further insights in the various approaches that Upper Egyptian women adopt in responding to gender inequalities in the public and private spheres of Egypt. Finally, I aim to contribute to theoretical debates pertaining the understanding of agency from Western and non-Western post-structural feminist scholarships where I argue that an amended and fused version of both approaches generate a more textured and nuanced account pertaining the concept of agency, one that provides Upper Egyptian women's embodied experiences accommodation and more consideration.