ABSTRACT
As a student of political participation among the sha ‘b (or popular sector) in the contemporary period, I have argued elsewhere that Western social scientists have ignored a range of informal political institutions which are indigenous to the urban milieu and sustained and supported by both men and women from the lower strata of society (Singerman 1995). The sha‘b only recently written back into history through the efforts of social and labor historians, students of peasant politics, and feminist scholars, still are portrayed largely as the objects of political rule rather than as the architects of political change and struggle, yet they remain essential to the overall political dynamics of national life.1 Unfortunately, the specificity of my case study in several densely-populated areas in central Cairo did not allow for a historical analysis which
would explore the continuities between political participation and collective life within a larger time frame.1
