Egypt vs. Masr

Ethnography is a qualitative research method used to understand how people live, interact, communicate, and make meaning within a particular local, cultural, social, or political context. It involves studying people in their everyday environments to understand their behaviors, beliefs, relationships, and engagement with their communities from their own perspectives.

Ethnographers often spend extended periods observing and participating in the daily lives of the people they study, an approach called participant observation. They supplement observation with interviews, field notes, and photographs to document everyday life. Less understood is how documenting sound can serve as a valuable source of ethnographic research, because it reveals aspects of social and cultural life that may not be visible through observation alone. Listening allows researchers to explore how people communicate, express emotions, establish identities and social position, remember, and experience the spaces they inhabit.

In Cairo, class is lived through space, language, and sound. The popular distinction between “Egypt” and “Masr” names two worlds that are heard as much as seen: in how people talk, what music they play, and what they call noise. This course uses listening to study how that divide is made, felt, and crossed. Because it runs for six weeks, students carry out a short, small-scale ethnography rather than long-term fieldwork. Part of the work is learning to say what such a study can and cannot show.

Learning objectives

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• Explain the theoretical foundations of sound ethnography and its relevance to the study of culture, power, and society.
• Demonstrate critical listening skills and analyze soundscapes in their social, cultural, and spatial contexts.
• Design and conduct a small-scale sound ethnography using appropriate qualitative research methods.
• Collect, document, and interpret sound-based data ethically and systematically.
• Critically reflect on the relationships among sound, identity, memory, power, place, and lived experience.
• Analyze “Egypt” and “Masr” as a class-coded distinction expressed in space, language, and sound, and evaluate what it flattens.

Preparation

Read two or three short commentary pieces on Egypt/Masr from Al Manassa and OkayAfrica before the first session.