ABSTRACT
Physical boundaries have increasingly become a characteristic feature of Egyptian cities. While the phenomenon extends to define public space, residential compounds and state facilities, urban heritage spaces are no exception where boundaries mark the limits of historic sites whenever possible. This chapter aims to introduce boundary theories as an analytical tool to understand heritage theories and instances of corresponding urban heritage practices in the Egyptian context. The proposed approach seeks to depart from the metanarrative of heritage spaces necessarily performing as locations of conciliation and ‘melting pots of identity’. Focussing on symbolic, social and physical boundaries as ‘locations of difference’, the study aims to reveal relationships between heritage as a practice and the wider public in the specific conditions of Egypt as part of the non-Western context of the Middle East and the Global South. A basic introduction to boundary theories from a social sciences’ perspective will be discussed in the first part of the chapter to set the groundwork for understanding their manifestations in the field of heritage. The second part presents some of the established boundaries mentioned in the field of Critical Heritage Studies as a point of departure suggesting different extensions and limitations to such boundaries in relation to the Egyptian sociopolitical and spatial context. The final part addresses the opportunities of exploring the concept of heritage boundaries beyond the limitations of global discourses and local dynamics of heritage production. A boundary approach to heritage may potentially contribute to theorisation of under-represented contexts, not as separate entities but as an integral to global heritage discourses by revealing relationships and ‘in-between spaces’.
