'Making space' in Cairo: Expatriate movements and spatial practices. Issue 88 (January 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kunz, Sarah
• Is Part Of: Geoforum. Issue 88(2018)
• Page Start: 109
• Page End: 117
• Publication Date: 2018-01
• Subjects: Privileged migration -- Expatriate -- Movement -- Space -- Whiteness -- Gender; Geography -- Periodicals; Human geography -- Periodicals; Regional planning -- Periodicals; Sciences de la terre -- Périodiques; Géographie -- Périodiques; Géographie humaine -- Périodiques; Aménagement du territoire -- Périodiques; Earth sciences; Geography; Human geography; Regional planning; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 304.205
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2017.11.014
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0016-7185

Abstract

Abstract: This paper examines what it means to be an 'expatriate' in Cairo through the lens of movement and space-making. Inquiring into a set of migrant (im)mobilities, spatial practices, relations, and imaginations, it argues that as a 'spatialised' identity category 'expatriate' narrates and enacts migratory privileges linked to wider hierarchies of social difference. It contributes to a growing literature examining the social and political dimensions of 'expatriate' migration and further engages scholarship thinking space and movement in relational and socio-historical terms. Rather than denoting an easily distinguishable group of migrants, 'expatriate' emerged as a contingent and ambiguous category of practice. As such, 'expatriate' stands in a productive relationship with privileged movement and socio-spatial processes. Like other migrants, respondents skillfully navigated the global differences in wealth, power and status they were presented with. Yet, unlike many other migrants, they did so from a privileged position within the global power-geometries of international migration. Migrants' personal geographies were further shaped by how bodies were racialised and gendered in entangled, intersecting and sometimes counter-intuitive ways. This diversity and complexity of 'expatriate' geographies highlights the necessity of intersectional and situated analyses of privilege.