Beauty, the Beast, and the Baseball Bat

Ethnography of Self-Defense Training for Upper-Class Women in Revolutionary Cairo (Egypt)

Bibliographic Data

ID2298982
AuthorsPerrine Lachenal (0000-0001-5355-3037, Maison méditerranéenne des sciences de l'Homme, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume13
Issue1
Pages58-77
Publication date2014-02-25
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueComparative Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1569-1322 • E-ISSN: 1569-1330
PublisherBrill (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1163/15691330-12341294
OpenAlexW2023463099
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited11

January 2011, Egypt: a huge revolutionary movement began. Since this moment, the perception of insecurity has clearly increased among the upper class. This feeling of vulnerability has opened the doors to new market opportunities related to personal security. In charming neighborhoods of Cairo, offers of self-defense training for women flourished. These training classes offer a valuable and fascinating ethnographic field for addressing the way emotional narratives shape social mobilizations. In class, self-defense participants confirm their shared social belonging while expressing feelings of anxiety in specific terms. Through the Egyptian case, I illustrate that anxiety constitutes a relevant analytical tool to better understand the social and emotional dynamics playing out in revolutionary societies

Aesthetics · Anxiety · Art · Beauty · Class (philosophy · Computer security · Epistemology · Ethnography · Feeling · Narrative · Perception · Sociology · Vulnerability (computing · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Martial Arts: Techniques, Psychology, and Education · Psychology · Social Psychology · Sports, Gender, and Society

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Open DOISci-HubOpen Access