Capitalism at home: labor and revolution in two Egyptian novels

Histories of capitalism in Egypt and the broader postcolonial world have much to gain from theorizing the home as a space of labor and care as a form of work. In this article the authors think with two Egyptian novels—The Open Door by Latifa al-Zayyat and Dhat by Sonallah Ibrahim—that center intimacy, care, and the home in their understandings of political and economic change. Representing both a revolutionary and a counterrevolutionary moment in Egypt, the two novels engage revolutionary politics through the lens of what they feel like, highlighting the affective nature of such moments. Moreover, centering the home as a space from which to theorize capitalism shows that social reproduction has always been part of the story of modern Egypt, and that the home has always been a political space, despite its haunting absence in work on capitalism in Egyptian history. When the home and what it feels like become a starting theoretical point, the functioning of capitalism becomes entangled with care work and the depletion that often comes with it. The authors trace this through both novels, addressing how one might theorize global capitalism through the home, through the novel, and through the past.