112 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 13: I 

Book Review 

Avenues of Participation: Family, 

Politics, and Networks in Urban 

Quarters of Cairo 

By Diane Singerman. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univer­

sity Press, 1995, 272 pp. 

Singerman's work calls for the field of political science to redefine its 
notions of political participation in the context of developing societies. 







Book Reviews 115 

here about the levels of interest affected when women's changing status 
heightens the need for PYO involvement. 

Some readers may be concerned about the study's scope and Singer­
man's ability to provide an outsider's insider view. She has recorded a 
wealth of information in her study. Her bibliography reflects attention to 
many relevant studies of Egypt (although not all) and theoretical works on 
other Third World studies. She does not claim to represent all of the neigh­
borhoods of Cairo, but has examined thoroughly the workings of a partic­
ular neighborhood at the household level. Variations may naturally be 
found in others of the same city. Others who have completed neighborhood 
studies (familiar to many former students of the American University of 
Cairo and often inspired by Tim Sullivan), like Nadia Adel Tahir, have 
noted the difficulties in making accurate estimates of income and earnings. 
As she noted in her monograph on social identity (Cairo Papers in Social 
Science 9:4, 1985), clerks and janitors earn unrecorded tips, and teachers 
earn tutoring income. Families may collect unreported amounts from work­
ing sons or daughters or may make money from selling black market items. 
Singerman notes the latter sort of income and observes other exchanges. 
One can only wonder about the accuracy of her respondents' reportage. 1n 
fact, she discusses various estimates of the informal economy's size at some 
length, and we should probably be careful about extrapolating from her 
data or from Abdel Fadil's ( on whom she relies), as her sample, though well 
documented, is limited in the context of Egypt's large population. 

Sherifa Zuhur 
Associate Professor, Department of Womens' Studies 

California State University, Sacramento 
Sacramento, California