ABSTRACT
How did the Egyptian Revolution come about? By focusing on a particular set of interactions during one day, January 25, 2011, in Egypt’s second city, Alexandria, this chapter uses a microanalytical approach to shed light on the highly interactive and volatile moments when a revolution starts. I argue that we cannot fully grasp what happened in Alexandria during the first sequence of the Egyptian revolution (what came to be known as the “18 days”) if we only look at macrostructural aspects of protest at the national level. Building on a multiplicity of data (interviews, observations, digital traces, review of the press) gathered during fieldwork conducted between 2011 and 2016, this research is a contribution to the microsociology of revolutions.
