Please, Come In: Furniture and National Identity in Postcolonial Egypt (1952-1981)

1952年，一场军事政变推翻了君主制，宣布从英国的占领中独立，并建立了埃及共和国。接下来的几年形成了一种新的国家认同，其大致轮廓至今仍然存在。本研究将通过研究家庭家具的亲密和物质世界来调查纳赛尔和萨达特时代后殖民埃及身份的形成和实践。这项研究将首次采用自下而上的方法，集中普通埃及人——尤其是女性——在后殖民民族主义的历史叙事中所扮演的角色。这个跨学科项目将家庭、物质文化和设计历史结合在一起，质疑民族身份是如何通过埃及家庭的日常实践来实现的。这项研究的影响超出了学术界，因为它的发现将与埃及和该地区的当代身份叙事特别相关。

n 1952, a military coup d'état overthrew the monarchy, declared independence from British occupation, and established Egypt as a republic. The years that followed were formative to a new national identity, the broad outlines of which are still lived today. This research will investigate the formation and practice of postcolonial Egyptian identity during the Nasser and Sadat eras by studying the intimate and material world of domestic furniture. The research will be the first to engage with the topic from a bottom-up approach centralising the role of ordinary Egyptians -specially women- in the historic narrative of postcolonial nationalism. This interdisciplinary project draws together the home, material culture, and design history to question how national identity was lived through everyday practices inside Egyptian homes. The impact of this research extends beyond academia as its findings will be particularly relevant to contemporary narratives of identity in Egypt and the region.