Jennifer L. Derr

The Lived Nile

Environment, Disease, and Material Colonial Economy in Egypt

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Jennifer L. Derr is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 264
• Erscheinungstermin: 30. Juli 2019
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 155mm x 228mm x 14mm
• Gewicht: 412g
• ISBN-13: 9781503609655
• ISBN-10: 1503609650
• Artikelnr.: 53532297

Autorenporträt

Jennifer L. Derr is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
Introduction: A River, Remade: Making Subjects on the Perennial Nile
chapter abstract
The Introduction describes Egypt's colonial economy and outlines the book's
main areas of intervention. The chapter describes the forms of agricultural
production on which Egypt's colonial economy rested, arguing that while
cotton was Egypt's top-ranking export, perennial irrigation facilitated the
production of other crops, specifically sugarcane and maize, that also
shaped the conditions of rural life. It then argues that bodily experiences
of colonial economy included new encounters with disease, the experience of
which was central to the production of the subject. This chapter next makes
an argument that the experience of authority in the countryside was
geographically variable and constituted by an assemblage of actors.
Finally, the Introduction explores the nature of expert knowledge, arguing
for the significance of acts of performance in constituting this knowledge.
1Nile Articulations: Decolonizing the History of Irrigation Engineering
chapter abstract
Chapter 1 revisits the work of irrigation engineering and the construction
of the perennial Nile River in the nineteenth century. This chapter
chronicles the emergence of the profession and training of state engineers
under Egypt's strong governor Mehmed Ali. It then compares these engineers
to those in the British Empire. Finally, this chapter examines the
processes through which British engineers learned Nile irrigation while
working to establish themselves as colonial experts. The historiography of
British irrigation engineering in Egypt has begun from the notion that
British engineers possessed great skill. This chapter challenges this
notion by situating these engineers within the historical context of
nineteenth-century Egypt and revisiting their work in Egypt and the
performative strategies they deployed to establish their knowledge.
2The Dammed Nile: The Thirty-Year Project to Build Khazan Aswan
chapter abstract
Chapter 2 chronicles the construction of the first modern dam on the Nile
River and the two subsequent projects to heighten it. The chapter charts
the material processes through which the dam was constructed and threatened
as well as the forms of political economic aspiration and erasure that were
attached to the structure during its first three decades of existence. It
argues that during the British colonial period and that of the
interwar-period Egyptian regime, the dam helped to support a particular
geography of capital production. It also lent the perennial Nile a degree
of permanency and shaped the conditions of possibility for the production
of expertise moving forward. This chapter also traces the progressive
displacement of historical Nubia during the first three decades of the
twentieth century.
3Beyond the Frontier: Negotiating the Geography of Authority in Egypt's
South
chapter abstract
Chapter 3 explores the histories of the areas of central and southern Egypt
that were perennially irrigated, focusing on the production of sugarcane in
Egypt. Beginning in the 1860s, Khedive Ismail established a sugarcane
industry on his estates, the Daira Sanieh. Following the construction of
Khazan Aswan, cotton moved into central Egypt, pushing sugarcane south.
During the first half of the twentieth century, the Egyptian Sugar Company,
controlled by the same colonial capitalists who helped build the dam and
profited from the production of cotton, controlled large swathes of
southern Egypt. "Beyond the Frontier" argues that the history of central
and southern Egypt demonstrates the geographically variable nature of
colonial authority in the Egyptian countryside. It also describes everyday
contestations over authority and the violence that marked labor and daily
life in these regions.
4Cruel Summer: Environmental Labors and the Scales of Subject Making
chapter abstract
Chapter 4 follows perennial irrigation into the bodies of laborers and
cultivators in the countryside. The introduction and extension of perennial
irrigation produced new agricultural ecologies and modes of environmental
engagement, in particular labor. One effect of these changes was a dramatic
uptick in the prevalence of the disease pellagra and infection with the
parasites schistosomiasis and hookworm. The majority of the population in
perennially irrigated regions suffered from at least one-and often more
than one-of these diseases. Just as the bodies of many rural Egyptians were
transformed, practitioners in Egypt formed colonial medical projects based
on a racialized understanding of bodies afflicted by the diseases of
perennial irrigation. They posited disease as normative and formulated
ideas of the Egyptian epidemic as ancient, eliding the role of colonial
economy in fueling disease.
5Treated Subjects: Irrigating the Veins of the Nation
chapter abstract
Chapter 5 explores the history of the project to treat hookworm and
schistosomiasis in Egypt. In the period preceding World War I, British
occupation authorities organized a limited project to survey and treat
hookworm. When the program resumed after the war, it was paired with that
for schistosomiasis. Under the interwar-period regime, treatment programs
expanded throughout the countryside, treating millions of Egyptians for
parasitic disease. Efforts to treat disease were complemented by those of
the Rockefeller Foundation to stem its spread through sanitation programs.
During the decades of the interwar period, the ecologies of disease
associated with the perennial Nile helped to shape the terms of medical
expertise and gave Egyptian scientists and physicians an entrée into a
field of tropical medicine that continued to be dominated by racial
hierarchies.
Conclusion: The Afterlives of the Perennial Subject
chapter abstract
The Conclusion summarizes the book's primary contributions to the
literature. First, it outlines the role of perennial irrigation and the
behaviors associated with it in fueling disease and the significance of
symptoms in producing new normative habitations of the body. It then
describes the role of treatment programs in producing national (physical)
subjects. Second, the Conclusion describes the manner in which authority
was constituted as a geographically and temporally variable assemblage in
the countryside during Egypt's colonial economy. Finally, it discusses the
significance for materiality in the production and practice of expertise
and that of acts of performance in establishing expertise as authority
among engineers and medical practitioners. The Conclusion then follows the
constructions of the perennial subject into the period that followed the
end of Egypt's colonial economy, exploring the afterlives of the
environment of Egypt's colonial economy.