Connected in Cairo: Growing Up Cosmopolitan in the Modern Middle East

For members of CairoÕs upper classes, cosmopolitanism is a form of social capital, deployed whenever they acquire or consume transnational commodities, or goods that are linked in the popular imagination to other, more ÔmodernÕ places. In a series of carefully contextualized case studiesÑof Arabic childrenÕs magazines, PokŽmon, private schools and popular films, coffee shops and fast-food restaurantsÑMark Allen Peterson describes the social practices that create class identities. He traces these processes from childhood into adulthood, examining how taste and style intersect with a changing educational system and economic liberalization. Peterson reveals how uneasy many cosmopolitan Cairenes are with their new global identities, and describes their efforts to root themselves in the local through religious, nationalist, or linguistic practices.