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Ramy Aly

  • Position: Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Anthropology Unit Head
  • Department: Department of Sociology, Egyptology and Anthropology
  • Email: ramy.aly@aucegypt.edu
Brief Biography

Ramy Aly joined the Anthropology program at The American University in Cairo (AUC) in 2013. Before coming to AUC, he was a lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Sussex, UK where he received his PhD in Social Anthropology in 2011. Aly's PhD research culminated in the publication of his first monograph, Becoming Arab in London: Performativity and the undoing of identity, in 2015 with Pluto Press as part of their celebrated Anthropology, Culture and Society Series. The book is the first ethnographic account of gender, race and class practices among British-born and raised Arabs in London and attempts to provide an account of the everyday experiences of Arabness in the British capital. He is also co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Middle Eastern Diasporas (2022).

He is currently engaged in two long-term research projects. The first explores the formation of ethical selves in the wake of the January revolution (2011). The second focuses on contemporary racial formations in Egypt by looking at the hair cultures of young Egyptians. Aly is a member of the Royal Anthropological Institute, UK, the European Association of Social Anthropology and The Society for Cultural Anthropology.

Aly supports students at AUC through his involvement with a number of writing initiatives. He is the chair of the Altorki Award for Ethnographic Research. He is also a co-founder of The Authors’ Challenge  and has been the faculty advisor for the AUC Times.

  • (Under review) The Politics of the Family and the Family’s Politics: Ethical Selves and the January Revolution at Home and School.
  • Abdelhady, D and Aly, R (2022) Routledge Handbook of Middle East Diasporas. London and New York, Routledge 
  • Abdelhady, D and Aly, R (2022) Coming to and coming from the Middle East: the unfolding of Diaspora. In Dalia Abdelhady and Ramy Aly (Eds) Routledge Handbook of Middle East Diasporas. London and New York, Routledge  
  • Aly, R (2021) The Culture Police: manning the barricades of allowable art and culture,’ in Robert Springborg (ed) Routledge Handbook on Contemporary Egypt, London and New York, Routledge
  • Edström, J.; Aly, R.; Greig, A. and Walker, C.; with Babenko, S.; Çağlar, M.; Kudaibergenova, D.T. and Müller, C. (2019) Masculinities and Transition: Enduring Privilege? Brighton: Institute of Development Studies (IDS)
  • Aly, R (2019) Young Migrant Identities: Creativity and MasculinityEthnic and Racial Studies
  • Aly, R. M. K. (2019) Our Children are a Threat: Policing Cultural and Political Temporality in Egypt. In Tarik Sabry and Joe Khalil (Eds) Arab Cultural Times: Media Modernity and Publicness. London IB Taurus
  • Aly, R (2018) Intertextuality. The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Sociology. Edited by George Ritzer and Chris Rojek. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
  • Aly, R. M. K. (2016), Hatha al-Shibl min dhak Alasad: Would-be Arab Youth Studies and the revival of subculture., in Tarik Sabry and Layal Ftouni (Eds.) Arab Subcultures: Reflections on Theory and Practice, London: IB Taurus
  • Aly, R. M. K. (2015) Becoming Arab in London: Performativity and the Undoing of Identity, London, Pluto Press: Anthropology, Society and Culture Series
  • Aly, R.M.K. (2014) Rebuilding Egyptian Media for a Democratic Future. Three Years Since the Spring. Cairo and New York, AUC Press
  • Aly, R. and Baumann, G., (2013) The BBC Arabic Services Dilemmatic Triangle: Competing Elites, Conflicting Priorities and Competing Media Strategies in Gillespie, M., and Webb, A., (eds). Diasporas and Diplomacy: Cosmopolitan Contact Zones at the BBC World Service 1932-2012. London: Routledge
  • Herbert, D, Black, T and Aly, R (2013) Arguing about religion: BBC World Service Internet forums as sites of postcolonial encounterJournal of Postcolonial Writing. Vol. 49, Issue 5: Networking the Globe: New Technologies and the Postcolonial
  • Aly, R (2012). Producing men, the Nation and Commodities: the Cultural Political-Economy of Militarism in Egypt. In Jan Selby and Anna Stavrianakis (eds.) Contemporary Militarism: Towards a New Research Agenda for International Relations. Routledge, London
  • Aly, R (2011). Mediating the Nation: from State to Public Service Broadcasting, critically engaging Egypt as a complex society. Arab Media and Society (July 2011)
  • Collyer, M & Aly, R (2011) Migration Legislation, Institutions and Policies in the Euromed Region(Euromed Migration II). European Commission and Sussex Centre for Migration Research, University of Sussex, UK
  • Aly, R (2010) Transnational Arab Media in London. Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism. 11(6)