TITLU în română: Practici spaţiale de „retragere” în rândul creştinilor egipteni: izolare sau întărire?
Subiect: Literature on the modern history of Coptic Christians often suggests that Christians have undertaken a process of retreat or withdrawal from public life in Egypt. It points to the reduction of political space and media in the 1950s/1960s under president Gamal Abdul Nasser and the subsequent Islamisation of public spaces since the 1970s under president Anwar al-Sadat. This article examines some of the practices of retreat employed by Christians in Egypt and the impact this has on collective identity and perceptions of belonging to the nation in order to determine if spatial practices of retreat are isolating or, in fact, empowering vis-a-vis inclusion in the public space and articulations of Egyptian Christian identities. It concludes that spatial retreat should not be understood as a withdrawal from the imaginary of Egypt or from Egyptian territory. In fact, spatial retreats often proclaim and affirm a Christian presence. These spaces support lived experiences of Egyptian Christian identity. By doing so, they contribute to empowering engagement with Egyptian national identity and heritage.
