Egypt in the Future Tense: Hope, Frustration, and Ambivalence before and after 2011 by Samuli Schielke (review)

In addition to producing fine-grained empirical knowledge of the region, the anthropology of the Middle East is increasingly at the forefront of contemporary theorizations of the state, modernity, gender, and religion. Samuli Schielke’s second monograph, Egypt in the Future Tense, speaks to these theoretical constellations in an ethnography that spans nearly a decade of fieldwork (2006–13) and a diverse cast of interlocutors that circle in and around a village in Egypt’s Nile Delta. Schielke is a research fellow at Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin, and external lecturer in Visual and Media Anthropology at the Free University of Berlin. He is also a filmmaker and photographer, and the creator of a widely read blog, You’ll Be Late for the Revolution!, between 2011 and 2013. In this latest work, Schielke captures his interlocutors’ anxieties, hopes, and frustrations with what he calls grand schemes, “persons, ideas, and powers that are understood to be greater than one’s ordinary life, located on a higher plane, distinct from everyday life, and yet relevant as models for living” (p. 13). In this way, he builds on his previous writings that explore how a theory of grand schemes, and the inconsistencies and disappointments that they both produce and seek to overcome, is a more accurate approach for capturing complexity.

Egypt in the Future Tense is Schielke’s latest provocation to move the anthropology of Islam away from its preoccupation with ethics and bodily practice, to open up possibilities for the study of contemporary life in Egypt “under conditions of neoliberal capitalism, revivalist Islam and political polarization” and focus on “the existential motivations and ambiguities of pursuing moral and spiritual perfection in an imperfect world” (pp. 3–4). Schielke narrates the aspirations, longings, and frustrations of his interlocutors, who are mostly Muslim male youth trying to transition to adulthood; an ever elusive imagined stage of life marked by material accumulation and responsibilities that help constitute one’s stability and authority. The book’s chapters trace hope for progress and experiences of boredom and frustration as key interlocutors navigate (longing for) migration and the pursuit of education and marriage during a period of national political experimentation.

The ethnography is notable for the multiplicity of voices it renders, from leftist revolutionaries to Salafis. Perhaps most importantly, this cacophony is found not only in the discussions these subjects have with one another, but are embodied in single individuals transitioning between and exploring different views and ways of living. Schielke’s long engagement with his inter-locutors allows readers to see how commitments shift, and how dreams and hopes for a better future are fluid and frustrated. By calling attention to complexity, inconsistency, and ambiguity, he captures life in Nazlat al-Rayyis, a pseudonym for a village in northern Egypt itself representative of a geographic ambivalence. Neither rural nor urban, the village is an in-between space for many seeking education and employment in nearby Alexandria and Cairo. Villagers’ lives are shaped not only by their proximity to Egypt’s urban poles, but by migration to the Gulf, and access to images of freedom and consumption transmitted through satellite television. It is through his attention to his interlocutors, often in the form of lengthy quotes, that Schielke articulates his main arguments. Indeed, his interlocutors become co-theorists and participate in the author’s research by observing themselves. At several moments, Schielke describes how he engages them and solicits their feedback and collaboration. It is through his self-described “positivistic” (p. 4) fidelity to his interlocutors that he positions his theory of grand schemes as a corrective to other works in the anthropology of Islam.

In this way, Egypt in the Future Tense is a combative text, often leading its argument with what it is not saying. While this style guides his reader through important theoretical debates and trends, the conclusions reached are not always satisfying. Schielke problematizes trends...