Frédéric Abécassis
Director of Studies at the French Institute for Oriental Archaeology (IFAO) in Cairo
icon-calendar Tuesday October 16ᵗʰ, 2018
Frédéric Abécassis is the new Director of Studies at the French Institute for Oriental Archaeology (IFAO) in Cairo. This seminar was an opportunity for him to present the different stages of his research project. Since his first visit to Egypt, Frédéric Abécassis has worked on a diverse set of research topics: private religious schools in Egypt, car traffic in Egypt and Morocco, and Muslim and Jewish migration in the Maghreb. Yet, all deal with the question of community building as a defense against the effects of the market economy in a liberal society.
Communities are built and disappear by a) economic solidarity (e.g. the richest paid the tuition of the poorest in religious schools), b) relationships of belonging and authority (e.g. the police were at the service of car owners rather than pedestrians), or c) conflicting historical narratives (e.g. Moroccan Jews gradually saw themselves as foreigners in Morocco).
If the study of history has therapeutic value, then the historian must assist everyone record the history of the communities to which they belong and of those they have left.
Click here to watch the pictures presented during the lecture…