Ziada, H., 2023.

Strange familiar: unpacking al-'Imara typology in Cairo

This article observes that an architectural-cum-urban type pervades Cairo's fabric: a structure with diverse uses that Cairenes call al-'imara, and which straddles the tense intersection of key social institutions and forces, the nuclear family, the state, and an increasingly deregulated market. Towards a deeper understanding of Cairenes' social space, this article pursues social and morphological analyses of al-'Imara's thresholds-cum-boundaries of private and public practices. It explores al-'imara's spatial configurations at the scales of the flat, the building and urban interrelations, formed around the middle-class family, white-collar work culture, and ideologies of city making, examined against historical and socio-economic developments in four key districts. Besides diagnosing divergences in socio-spatial cultures between formal and informal districts, the article discerns a profusion of al-'imara's private qualities throughout public space, while public practices increasingly unfold in the context of its enclosures. With civic practices restricted by state and market forces, Cairo's social space performs as if turned outside-in.