Everyday (im)possibility: Women living, embodying and contesting undocumentation in Cairo

Abstract

This thesis explores the experiences of undocumented women in Cairo, Egypt. It draws from intimate ethnographic testimonies collected during summer 2019 and auto-ethnographic experiences and narratives stretching over ten years of time. Theoretically situated between anthropological and gender theory, I attend to the various everyday encounters women in Cairo have with documentary absences. According to UN estimations, there exist four million Egyptian women living without ID cards inside the nation-state. ID cards are required from every Egyptian citizen aged 15 and over, and needed to access schools, hospitals, and housing, open bank accounts and claim inheritance, as well as vote in elections. Many women without ID cards also lack birth certificates and have no records of their existence. In this study, I juxtapose different material documents of citizenship and identification (ID card, birth certificate, marriage certificate) and ask how their lack/absence is experienced in everyday life by Egyptian women. The thesis introduces ‘undocumentation’ as a novel framework for approaching material processes of sovereignty-in-the-making. By tracing embodied experiences and processes of undocumentation, I challenge static notions of identity and abstract categorisations in relation to people without identification documents. I situate the topic of living without state-administered identity papers in a broad conversation with gendered spatial bordering processes – constituting identities and difference.