Hanan Hammad
Tuesday, February 22
4-6 PM
E51-095
Industrial Sexuality: Prostitution in al-Mahalla al-Kubra, Egypt, 1927-1949
Dealing with gender and sexuality as intimate aspects of the social
transformation associated with the spread of modern industry in Egypt, this
talk traces licensed and unlicensed prostitution in al-Mahalla since the
establishment of the Misr Spinning and Weaving Company (MSMW) in al-Mahalla in
1927, until prostitution was outlawed in Egypt in 1949. The establishment of
the MSWC as the largest domestically-owned textile enterprise in Egypt set in
motion unsettling dynamics which transformed the town's socio-economic life.
Among these was the immigration of thousands of male and female peasants hired
to work in the mill, proliferation of prostitution and venereal diseases, and
exposure of private intimacy to public scrutiny and judgment. On one hand,
along with public discourses on morality and public health and the conditions
of the working class, the state interfered and selectively criminalized
particular sexual practices. On the other hand, people of the town continued to
practice public prostitution and fight secret prostitution. In doing so, they
and the prostitutes themselves were active shapers of their lives rather than
mere subjects of the law and the state’s power. Studying prostitution in
al-Mahalla during this period of exceptionally rapid socio-economic change and
population growth not only gives us a window on a particular type of illicit
sexuality and public morality in a colonial context, it also hints as to gender
and inter-communal relations on the margins of a local community, and how its
society was transformed. I use prostitution in al-Mahalla in the first half of
the 20th century to trace how a provincial community negotiated both an
encroaching colonial state, and its puritanical nationalist discourses.
Hanan Hammad is assistant professor of history at Texas Christian University.
In 2010-2011 she is the fellow of Europe in the Middle East – The Middle East
in Europe at the Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin. She earned her Ph.D in Middle
East History with a supporting field in Persian studies at the University of
Texas at Austin in 2009. Currently, she is working on a book manuscript
tentatively entitled “Mechanizing People: Industrialization, Sexuality, Gender,
and Social Transformation in Modern Egypt”. Her publications include "Between
Egyptian 'national purity' and 'Local Flexibility': Prostitution in al-Mahalla
al-Kubra in the first half of the 20th century" forthcoming in Journal of
Social History and " From Condemnation to Fascination: and the Iranian
Revolution and Khomeini in the Egyptian Press” in Radical History Review. She
holds a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from Cairo University, and
before coming to the world of academia she worked as a journalist in Egyptian,
Kuwaiti and American newspapers.
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