Between gatekeeping and self-making. The book in Egypt's economy of self-publishing.

Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F68378009%3A_____%2F25%3A00640906" target="_blank" >RIV/68378009:_____/25:00640906 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
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DOI - Digital Object Identifier
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Result language
angličtina
Original language name
Between gatekeeping and self-making. The book in Egypt's economy of self-publishing.
Original language description
This presentation explores what it means to publish a book within Cairo’s economy of self-publishing. Drawing on long-term ethnographic research with aspiring writers in Cairo who self-publish and participate in literary clubs, this paper asks whether the act of publishing still provides access to literary recognition when it is accessible for a fee, and if not, what it signifies for authors who invest personal resources in publishing their books in Cairo. nnAdopting an anthropological approach attentive to materiality, I argue that in this milieu, self-published books operate not merely as texts but as material objects with social agency that actively participate in authors’ self-making as writers. Drawing on anthropological theories of art and personhood, I show how books function as personalized extensions of their authors and circulate within literary clubs as gifts, exchanged for recognition, discussion, and social ties. In doing so, self-published books sustain a localized gift economy that embeds writers in networks of reciprocity and constitutes them as literary subjects within Cairo’s literary communities.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Project
<a href="/en/project/GA23-07353S" target="_blank" >GA23-07353S: Pathways of Literary Professionalization in Twenty-first-century Egypt</a><br>
Continuities
I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year
2025
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

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