---
title: "A House Against Housing: Post-Displacement Nubian Domesticity"
authors: ["agha.md"]
abstract: This text discusses the displacement of the Nubian community and their houses due to hydropower projects, particularly the Aswan Low Dam, and subsequent developments. The impact of these projects led to economic hardships, male migration to urban areas for work, and women managing the Nubian houses. Despite these challenges, the Nubian community displayed resilience in rebuilding their villages. The text also examines the housing project initiated by the state for resettlement, known as \"New Nubia", by the state but referred to unfavorably as \"*Al Tagheer*\" by Nubians. The planning and implementation of this project were criticized for not adequately considering the Nubian culture and community needs, resulting in dissatisfaction among residents. Here, I highlight how Nubians took matters into their own hands, making modifications to the state-built dwellings to align them with their cultural norms. Nubian women played a crucial role in these modifications and the construction of houses, displaying their resilience and adaptability.
keywords: ["Nubia", "displacement", "House", "Gender", "Architecture"]
---

# Displaced Architecture

The Nubians and their houses faced multiple displacements triggered by
hydropower projects, starting with the Aswan Low Dam in 1902 (later
heightened in 1912 and 1933).[^1] The impact of the dam development
resulted in the loss of arable land, resources, and power within the
Nubian house. Economic dispossession forced Nubian men to migrate to
urban centers for wage labour, leaving the Nubian house to be managed by
women. The 1933 heightening of the dam caused further devastation,
flooding villages and prompting more labour migration. The Nubian house
confronted an environmental catastrophe due to irresponsible
developments. Despite the state offering a meager amount to replace the
houses lost, the Nubian community rallied together, rebuilding their
villages in what Hassan Fathy termed \"A Miracle in Architecture\".[^2]
The Nubian house exhibited resilience, with all houses reconstructed in
twelve months, each unique and more beautiful than the other, reflecting
the community-based and emotionally-driven building regime.

It is important to the larger pushback against epistemic violence and
the depoliticizing language of "development" to investigate and explain
the wealth that was lost after displacement, and to do so, I look into
modes of epistemic violence by way of housing in the resettlement
villages. The state-built housing project was dubbed New Nubia by the
state, but Nubians refer to it unfavorably as "*Al Tahgeer*," meaning
"place of displacement."[^3] In this text, I look at the Nubian house
from inside the house, through memories, and rely on stories embedded
within the Nubian collective consciousness. In this text, I use the term
Old Nubia to refer to Nubian land before 1963 and use the terms
resettlement villages, settlements, and *tahgeer* to refer to the
current site of resettlement near Aswan.

# Planning without Nubians

New Nubia, as the state names it, or *tagheer* as Nubians refer to it,
is a large housing project (approximately 12,000 units) that was
designed as a substitute \"habitat\" for residents of Nubian lands
flooded during the construction of the High Dam, was later criticized
for replicating the economic habitat of the old community which
alienated Nubians.[^4] The state produced the plan under the supervision
of The Joint Committee for Nubian Resettlement, established in April
1961.[^5] The planning concept claimed to take a motto of
\"centralization in planning and decentralization in implementation\" to
reconcile central planning and community participation.[^6]

However, the planning was hastily finalized and claimed to be "a replica
of the original housing schemes with a socialist tinge," which is
visibility contradicted by comparing the plans of Old Nubia and those of
*tahgeer*.[^7] Notably, the plans were not based on
substantial sociological or anthropological studies, as they were
finalized before the Ethnographic survey on Nubia concluded its
duties.[^8] The Ethnographic survey, which was first conceived in 1960,
was not tasked to offer spatial information about Nubian houses.[^9]
Instead, it had a clear task of providing information to assist the
Egyptian government in its efforts; the project helped the state learn
how to deal with Nubians but not the other way around.[^10] The research
was tasked with uncovering tactical problems, part of which was to study
the social organization and cultural traditions of the three ethnic
sub-divisions of Egyptian Nubia, each with its own linguistic and
cultural characteristics.

The government then invited locals to show them models of their
then-future homes, as a part of a participatory agenda. However, this
was done later in the process when most of the design decisions had
already been made. As documented in the official reports, the planning
process was based on modern urban planning methodologies.[^11] The
rectangular planning pattern, the minimalist dwelling units, the
centralized and optimized surveys, and the greater focus on productivity
were all features in planning the new Nubian settlements. Nubian women
were excluded from decision-making, which is evident in the Egyptian
government\'s documentation, which kept lists of locals invited. They
were all men, and this rendered the process gender biased.

\"We \[the women\] did not speak Arabic, and they \[the interviewers\]
did not speak Nubian. They spoke only to the Omda \[mayor\] and some
men; then the men told us our houses would drown; they also said we
would go to a new Qustul, we would have hospitals and schools and plenty
of lands (sarcastically), look around you, we were fooled\," as Anna
Zolihka said (Qustul, December 2016). The government operated a
gender-exclusive assignment, with most officials being men, who dealt
mostly with Nubian men. This was justified by the claim that few Nubian
women spoke Arabic.[^12] Consequently, most states offered polls and
community invitations only to men, and compensation was distributed to
the men. The flaws in the state system that excluded women from much of
the wealth and the complicity of some Nubian men with said system for
material gains all rendered the process unjust.

The typical resettlement village in New Nubia had a modern linear grid
and a linear orientation for residential buildings, with a concentration
of building plots surrounded by agricultural land. The linear grid was
often dominated by the main street, with services such as a mosque,
commercial center, school, sports center, and post office in the heart
of this area. The design was often referred to as unimaginative due to
its simple form and synthetic spaces that reappropriated elements of
Nubian architecture but failed to offer the spatial quality of our
ancestral land.[^13]

The layout of a typical settlement is similar to plans produced by the
early modernist schools. It was also affected by the 1930 and 1940
movements of the "modern Egyptian village" that aimed to replace the
existing village with a gridded one to introduce the Egyptian peasant to
order and culture.[^14] Large-scale housing projects in cases of
development-induced displacement and resettlement have been a topic of
concern and debate within the field of urban development and social
sciences. The challenges and problems associated with such projects have
been well-documented in academic literature. Several key issues arise in
the context of large-scale housing projects for development-induced
displacement and resettlement, including social disruption, loss of
livelihoods, inadequate compensation, and lack of community
participation in the resettlement process.

After resettlement, dwelling units were distributed to families
according to their size, thus discounting spatial logic and severing
social contracts. Residents recalled that their first encounter with the
settlement was filled with disappointment: the modern paradise they were
promised was just an incomplete housing project in the desert. But even
those housed in the state-built dwelling units were roofless and
doorless, so the Nubian people had to invest time and resources into
building their own houses. During that time, the society came together
to survive. The process of resettlement in new houses did not flow
smoothly, according to most literature.[^15] The housing units and their
facilities were not complete at the time of the move. As Saida, a
78-year-old woman in Qustul, said: "When we first arrived here, there
was a house for one family and no house for five others, and if one
received one, it would have no roof and windows."

# Building Houses Against Housing

American anthropologists Fernea and Kennedy were responsible for the
ethnographic survey in Nubia during and after the displacement.[^16]
They noted the vast construction efforts in Nubian displacement
villages: "There is scarcely a neighborhood in New Nubia in which some
houses have not been radically altered through the mounting of China
plates above the doors, as in Old Nubia, and by plastering the exterior
with mud to create a facade upon which traditional Nubian designs may be
painted."[^17] The creation of the house in the "Nubian way" was crucial
to Nubians; therefore, they often paid for an expensive remodeling of
the new settlement. "Some house-owners have spent as much as 300 EGP in
their efforts to bring the new homes into conformity with traditional
Nubian standards." This is an astounding amount of money, knowing that
in 1960, Egyptian per capita income was 52.4 EGP per year. The
government\'s compensation for their lost houses was 10 pounds per
house. As Fernea mentions, cash compensations were given to men and
quickly spent, which meant the burden fell on Nubian women who had to
sell their coveted gold.[^18] My grand aunt said: "We had to sell our
gold in Kom Ombo to make this \[points to the dwelling unit\] a proper
house."

Nubians have exhibited their dissatisfaction with their newly built
environment both verbally, in my interviews, and in the renovations they
implemented to make the state-built dwelling units liveable. They have
reappropriated the state-built dwellings and refurbished them; Nubian
women have made the *mastaba*, a bench attached to the home, as they did
in their old villages.[^19] Some Nubians have opted to build a house
themselves. Often referred to *ahaly* (people-built) houses, they are
similar in design and spatial order to the old Nubian houses, yet they
had to redefine their relationship with the outside. Nonetheless, Nubian
houses retained the tradition of unlocked doors even in the state-built
dwellings with their built-in door lock; Nubians drilled a hole in their
doors to ensure accessibility. Growing up, I remember that our door
would open after three polite knocks, and someone would come in without
being told to enter. The accessibility of the house and people's desire
to access it were matters of family pride: "Our house is always full,"
as my grandmother used to say.

Historically, the everyday lives of Nubian women were integrated within
the social sphere, as was the house. The average surface area of Nubian
houses, before resettlement, ranged from 500 to 2,000 square meters, and
it is common to find a 1,600 square meter unit that is registered as the
residence of four or five people.[^20] The state dwelling units offered
much smaller surface areas, moving all social encounters, such as
weddings and conflict councils, to formally designated public spaces.
Dwelling units in the current settlement are less than 10% of the
average Nubian house as the state-offered dwellings varied from 100 to
220 square meters, which resulted in two separate spheres -- one public
and one private.[^21]

My grandmother's stories often deal with the house as the site of
everyday life; she expects me to automatically set the events in her
story in a house unless otherwise told. A house is a place where people
meet, eat, sort their crops, and divide their shares. The house in my
grandmothers' stories has the ability to transform into a courthouse, a
warehouse, and a large-scale kitchen, which explains the large surface
areas of traditional Nubian houses in relation to the number of their
occupants, unlike the units designed by the Egyptian state in the
resettlement village. The Nubian house was never a mere dwelling. The
state-built houses are modernist in design, offering the minimum
requirements for a human being -- rooms to sleep in, a kitchen, and a
bathroom. The units were built around a courtyard as the state
architects claimed to draw inspiration from traditional Nubian
houses.[^22] The courtyard was too small in scale to fulfil its social
role in incubating social life or its environmental role in cooling and
ventilating the house.[^23] The architecture of the dwellings limited
the Nubian house and its role in social, economic, and political
functions and, therefore, made the Nubian house a dispossessed Nubian
institution, consequently excluding women from the public sphere and
destroying the Nubian household as a cultural institution and its
constitutive power. In this case, the very existence of public space is
an ontological intrusion and an infringement on the indigenous spatial
order, an order in which the house and its women were politically
involved.

# Emotional Place-Making

In the early 1970s, a remarkable story unfolds against the backdrop of
the massive displacement of the Nubian community from their ancestral
lands in Old Nubia due to hydropower projects. It centers around Sakina
Abaya, a Nubian woman who became a symbol of resilience, emotional
placemaking, and community empowerment in the face of upheaval. A few
years after the move from Old Nubia, there was a surge in construction
activities by displaced Nubians. Four of Sakina Abaya's children were in
Qustul during the state-operated census before the resettlement; the
fifth was studying in Khartoum with his family and was not issued a
house. The construction of Sakina's son's house began; he states: "She
had commissioned a master mason with the foundation work, as we did not
understand the soil of this place \[New settlement\]." He continues:
"She sat there, in a close distance under the shade while we started
working with the master mason, she brought food and a tea making kit
every day, she woke us up, came with us, and left with us." Then, I asked:
"Who decided the division of the house?" He answered: "She did, she would
tell us to get this wall to end here, or leave a place for windows here."
He continues: "She was a boss, she understood building and was never
fooled by commissioned workers. Actually, they all respected her because
she gave them food and made them tea whenever they wanted."

Sakina Abaya initiated the building process by invoking the love and
respect of her grandchildren that she garnered over years of caring for
them; she sustained the construction process from beginning to end by
performing a practice of care as she sat there with the workers all day
making tea, she also choreographed the social characteristics of the
house from her position. Sakina Abaya acted as their building supervisor
and caregiver. Sakina Abaya died when I was around nine years old, but
she was surrounded by stories of the exquisite skill with which she
generated social, emotional, and material capital. With the same method,
she built three houses for her family, farmed their land, and planted
numerous palm trees, which we eat daily to this day.

Within the shadow economy of Qustul, I found an effective
micro-financing network. A person in financial need can initiate a
financing cycle, a *Jame'ya*, in which he or she can ask trusted
persons, mostly women, who are willing and able to join a pool of women
by paying a cyclic contribution (monthly/weekly/bi-monthly/etc.).[^24]
When they find a pool that suits their economic need, the person and the
*Jame'ya* agree on a time frame, and a person responsible for managing
the pool (banker) is assigned. This person is often a trusted woman. The
banker/manager is responsible for the collection and the allocation of
funds in a timely manner (e.g., each month); she is also responsible for
conducting a random draw to decide the succession of payment to
participants. Usually, need trumps the random draw; for instance, if the
participants agree among each other--under the banker's coordination--that those in pressing need are paid first. People who are financially
comfortable join these co-ops as it is a social honor and duty; they
often get paid last.

It is the poor people\'s bank "where money is not idle for long but
changes hands rapidly, satisfying both consumption and production
needs."[^25] Moreover, the trade in this bank is not only in money;
there is also an exchange of care and honor. Habbob tells the story of Fatom
Jaara, a woman in her eighties who has been managing a *Jame'ya* since
1970 in the displaced village of Thomas Wa Afia, his Nubian village,
which is now located in Esna, 55 kilometers south of Luxor.[^26] In the
70s, her participants used to pay 0.25 EGP per month. Fatom Jaara's
*Jame'ya* is one of the many old banks that can be found in all
displacement villages, whose inhabitants have no relations with
formalized or big banks, which helped the funding of buildings,
weddings, travel, school supplies, and more.

In this exploration of Sakina Abaya\'s building story and the *Jame'ya*
network, I remember and honor the emotional labor that builds our Nubian
houses, communal bonds, and the profound connection between people and
the places they create, even in the face of forced displacement. It
underscores the notion that places are not merely physical entities but
also vessels of emotion, memory, and identity, shaped by those who
inhabit and care for them. As we journey through these narratives, we
gain insight into the intricate web of emotions, values, and traditions
that define Nubian placemaking, even in the most challenging
circumstances.

![The house built by Sakina Abaya in Qustul.](../static/images/ahlam.jpg "The house built by Sakina Abaya in Qustul.")

**~~Figure 1. The house built by Sakina Abaya in Qustul.~~**


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[^1]: Waterbury, *Hydropolitics of the Nile Valley*.

[^2]: El-Hakim *Nubian Architecture*, p. iv.

[^3]: On the term "New Nubia," see Fernea and Gerster, *Nubians in Egypt*.

[^4]: Wahdan, "Planning Imploded."

[^5]: Serageldin, "Planning for New Nubia 1960-1980."

[^6]: ibid.

[^7]: Ghabbour, "Involuntary Resettlement in Development Projects."

[^8]: Hopkins and Mehanna, *Nubian Encounters*.

[^9]: Fernea, "The Ethnological Survey of Egyptian Nubia."

[^10]: Hopkins and Mehanna, *Nubian Encounters*.

[^11]: Serageldin, "Planning for New Nubia 1960-1980."

[^12]: Fernea and Kennedy, "Initial Adaptations to Resettlement."

[^13]: On the unimaginative design, see Serageldin, "Planning for New Nubia 1960-1980"; Ghabbour, "Involuntary Resettlement in Development Projects."

[^14]: Mitchell, *Rule of Experts*.

[^15]: Allen *Nubians and Development*; Fahim, "Community-Health Aspects of the Nubian Resettlement
in Egypt"; 2013, 2014; Fernea and Kennedy , "Initial Adaptations to Resettlement"; Ghabbour, "Involuntary Resettlement in Development Projects";
    Hopkins and Mehanna , *Nubian Encounters*; Mahgoub, "The Nubian Experience"; Scudder, *Aswan High Dam Resettlement of Egyptian Nubians*;
    2016a, 2016b; Serageldin, "Planning for New Nubia 1960-1980"; Tadros "The Human Aspects of Rural Resettlement Schemes in Egypt"; Tibe "Nubian Land Rights."

[^16]: Fernea and Kennedy, "Initial Adaptations to Resettlement."

[^17]: Fernea and Kennedy, "Initial Adaptations to Resettlement," p. 351.

[^18]: Fernea, "The Ethnological Survey of Egyptian Nubia."

[^19]: Fernea and Kennedy, "Initial Adaptations to Resettlement."

[^20]: On average surface area of Nubian houses before resettlement, see
    El-Hakim, *Nubian Architecture*.

[^21]: On the size, see Serageldin, "Planning for New Nubia 1960-1980."

[^22]: Serageldin, "Planning for New Nubia 1960-1980."

[^23]: Bayoumi, "Nubian Vernacular Architecture and Contemporary Aswan Buildings' Enhancement."

[^24]: Habbob, "Community Sharing"; Jennings, *The Nubians of West Aswan*.

[^25]: Bouman, "Indigenous Savings and Credit Societies in the Developing World."

[^26]: Habbob, "Community Sharing."