RGP Cycle One Grantees and Projects

Saker El-Nour: Mechanisms of Access to Resources and Social Movement in Rural Egypt: A Study of Peasant Strategies and the Model of Agricultural Development between Reproduction and Change in the Context ofthe Revolution

This research proposal will examine available mechanisms of access to resources and social movement in rural Egypt. This project seeks to better understand the opportunities available to poor and smallholder farmers enabling them to access and control productive resources and social servicesand the possibilities of social mobilization in the context of the Egyptian Revolution through a detailed analysis of peasant strategies and current agricultural development plans and programs. The research relies on the study of social dynamics approach, which depends on qualitative methods and analysis of the strategies of social agents, bringing together macro and micro sociological analysis. The research will depend on field research in a group of Egyptian villages in Upper Egypt (Assuit- Qena- Sohag) , but primarily in Nazlat Salman village in Assiut.The fieldwork methodology employed combines the ethnographic study of the village with the study of life stories of local groups, in addition to analyzing the context of the state’s economic, social and agricultural policies as well as rural development programs. Through this methodology, I attemptto better understand the mechanisms, manifestations and determinants of access to resources and the changes therein due to the revolution; the social classification tools and characteristics of the social movement in rural regions and changes therein due to the Revolution; as well as the tools of social categorization and features of social mobility in rural society and the changes to them as well due to the Revolution. It also examines the relationship between access to resources and social mobilityconsidering four dimensions: the temporal, spatial, genderand generational. Finally, this proposal contributes to rethinking the "inequitable access to resources and social movement in rural Egypt” argument, considering the fact that male and female peasantsare active agents and that access to resources as well as mobilityaredynamic processes that interact in the context of social change accompanying the Revolution and the extent of departure from or reproduction of the neoliberal policies adopted by Mubarak’s regime.

SakerEl-Nour: is a researcher in Sociology. After graduating from the Faculty of Agriculture, his interest in the social sciences began. He studied development and social capital in his Higher Diploma and then conducted a study on rural youth forhis Masters degree. He is now in the stage of completing his PHD thesis at the University of Paris 10. His research addresses the problematics of the dynamics of poverty in ruralEgypt. His research interests are centered on food sovereignty, access to resources, poverty and marginalization. He has contributions and published research about rural youth, and female labor in the agricultural sector, accesstoresources and strategies of poverty alleviation. He conductedfieldwork in Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia. He works in the field of applied research and contributed totraining for NGOs.