Scholarship’s elite-versus-mass framing obscures how Egypt’s social boundaries were actually crossed.

Evidence

Useful as this welcome reminder is, however, Toledano’s picture of Egyptian society in the “middle decades” is heavily influenced by the views of these Turkish-speaking elite and although he attempts to get closer to the non-elite members of Egyptian society it is difficult to see clearly from his narrative how these two groups interacted with each other. While he argues, for example, that “[t]he socio-cultural process of boundary drawing and redrawing was constantly acted out in mid-nineteenth-century Egypt,” and that the peripheral zone between these two groups was “the twilight zone where limits are blurred, where boundaries overlap,” the very form the book takes – being divided in two parts, one devoted to the study of the elite and the other of the non-elite, and having a separate chapter on the “Great social divide in Egyptian society” – makes it difficult to see how exactly these social barriers and boundaries were crossed or negotiated. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 107

Categorization

• QUESTION: How did Arabic-speaking Egyptians actually cross into the Turkish-speaking elite and army ranks under Mehmed Ali? This bears directly on the makeup of the army the reader wants to understand.
• XREF: connects to: Egypt’s nineteenth-century history shows elite boundaries continuously being crossed — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1326; Elite identity in Egypt was culturally porous but hardened within the military — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1326; Egyptian elite drama policed social boundaries between pasha sons and servants. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 955 (+7 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Egypt’s nineteenth-century history shows elite boundaries continuously being crossed — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1326; Elite identity in Egypt was culturally porous but hardened within the military — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1326; Egyptian elite drama policed social boundaries between pasha sons and servants. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 955 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Egypt’s nineteenth-century history shows elite boundaries continuously being crossed #corroborates (0.95) — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1326
• Egypt’s school pyramid literally mirrored its social class hierarchy #complicates (0.80) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 271
• Egyptian elites mythologized Sudanese servants as guardians of Ottoman social boundaries. #complicates (0.79)
• Egyptian elite drama policed social boundaries between pasha sons and servants. #complicates (0.78) — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 955