Echoes of the Past: Egyptian Student Activists between Revolution, Repression and Memory of the Student Movement

Abstract: Based on an extensive ethnographic field study among various groups of student activists, this article questions how the memory of historical student protests, namely of 1946 and 1972, is being actualized during student mobilizations after the revolution, especially in the post-2013 repressive context. Focusing on contentious repertoires as the incarnation of memory politics, this article shows how the historical student movement stands for a pool of contentious performances as well as a long standing mnemonic frame of the ‘role’ students should play in society. It then suggests that this past is read through the lens of the ongoing revolution of 2011, and later of the impeding repression. At the same time, the past also weighs in the process of understanding, dealing with and defining one’s place in the present moment whether in terms of actors’ strategies, priorities, ambitions or survival tactics in times of repression. Finally, this article concludes with a preliminary reflection on the potential channels transferring the memory of the student movement, namely, the revolutionary moment, the pre-revolutionary contentious mobilizations, the ‘national historiography’ and Social Media.