Description
Technological advancements, expanding education, and unfettered capitalism have encouraged many around the world to aspire to better lives, even as declines in employment and widening inequality are pushing more and more people into insecurity and hardship. In Egypt, a generation of young men desire fulfilling employment, meaningful relationships, and secure family life, yet find few paths to achieve this. The Labor of Hope follows these educated but underemployed men as they struggle to establish careers and build satisfying lives. In so doing, this book reveals the lived contradiction at the heart of capitalist systems-the expansive dreams they encourage and the precarious lives they produce.
Harry Pettit follows young men as they engage a booming training, recruitment, and entrepreneurship industry that sells the cruel meritocratic promise that a good life is realizable for all. He considers the various ways individuals cultivate distraction and hope for future mobility: education, migration, consumption, and prayer. These hope-filled practices are a form of emotional labor for young men, placing responsibility on the individual rather than structural issues in Egypt's economy. Illuminating this emotional labor, Pettit shows how the capitalist economy continues to capture the attention of the very people harmed by it.
Author: Harry Pettit
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 11/14/2023
Pages: 240
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.75lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.70d
ISBN13: 9781503637443
ISBN10: 1503637441
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Social Classes & Economic Disparity
- History | Middle East | Egypt (see also Ancient | Egypt)
- Political Science | Political Economy
About the Author
Harry Pettit is Assistant Professor in Economic Geography at Radboud University Nijmegen.