‘Isn’t Everything an Afterlife?’
Yasmine Kherfi and Sigrid Corry in Conversation with Dr Atef Said on Ethnographic Methods, Temporality and History. What does it mean to write, witness, and take part in history in the making? Yasmine Kherfi and Sigrid Corry speak to Dr Atef Said, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois, to explore questions of methodology, as well as its personal, scholarly and political implications. His book, Revolution Squared: Tahrir, Political Possibilities, and Counterrevolution in Egypt (Duke University Press, 2024), traces the story of the Egyptian revolution of 2011, documenting the spaces and histories through which it unfolded. Through ethnographic fieldwork in Tahrir Square, its surrounding streets and digital platforms, Said examines the dynamic character of revolution—one that is both indeterminate and shaped by historical contingencies.