Remembering Nubia’s Past: Space, Generations and Memorial Practices

Abstract: This article investigates how Nubian actors establish different memorial practices to transmit their culture and heritage in contemporary Egypt. The aim is to shed light on the heterogeneity of the Nubian community, thereby avoiding the dichotomy of the state official narrative versus a homogenized Nubian narrative. By mobilizing the sociology of collective memory and the sociology of social movements, this article aims to advance more reflection on the complexity of the remembering process. In order to explore how the memorial and cultural practices evolved in the last decade, I first present a historical background to explain to what the Nubian collective memory refers. By presenting critical discussions, I suggest using the space of the Nubian past because it enables us to understand better the dynamics and the diversity of the engaged actors. I highlight the generational factor, in the second part of this article, by illustrating how Nubian Youth are renewing their logics of action.