Graduate Student Directory

Summary of Expertise

My research sits at the intersection of political theory, urban geography, and global political economy. 

Broadly, I am interested in the relationship between movement and political-economic systems and structures, such as the state. My dissertation project studies the political economy of global mobility justice in the second-half of the twentieth century (from 1980 onward). It draws on Egypt as a case study and uses a range of primary and secondary sources. The project provides a theoretically-grounded understanding of our current, global crisis of unequal mobility through the policies, practices, institutions, and infrastructures that create it and make it possible. 

I published part of my dissertation research in a peer-reviewed article last year, titled "The Violence of Memory and Movement: Reading Cairo from its Ring Road." You can access the paper here. 

In addition to my dissertation, I have been working on a separate research project on mobility, security/violence, and states in the Euro-Mediterranean regione, with a focus on France and Egypt. The project resulted in two manuscripts in progress. 

Research Interests

Political and critical social theory; the state/state-making; urban politics and space; political economy; mobility; infrastructure; violence; capitalism; the body; postcolonial theory; critical race theory; Middle East, Africa, and Europe. 

Biography, Education and Training

2020  MA (with Honors) Politics, UC Santa Cruz

2016  BA (Summa Cum Laude) Honors Program in Political Science and History, The American University in Cairo (AUC)

          Specialization: International Relations; Minor: Arab and Islamic Civilization 

          Honors' Thesis: Egypt's Peripheral Colony: Violence, Disciplinary Power, and State Making in the Sinai Peninsula, 1979-2016

In Cairo, I worked with a number of English-language media outlets, magazines, and newspapers, such as Mada Masr, Ahram Online (the English-language edition of Egypt's oldest newspaper, est. 1875), Tahrir News Network, Community Times, Egypt Today, and Egyptian Streets. I also worked as an intern and consultant with the Deutsche Geselleschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), supporting the project, Implementing the New Urban Agenda (UN Habitat III) in Egypt (INUA). 

At UCSC, I served as the Graduate Student Fellow (2019-2020) for the Legal Studies Program. 

Honors, Awards and Grants

Social Science Research Council (SSRC) Dissertation Proposal Development (DPD) Fellowship, 2020

Politics Department Travel Grant, Winter-Spring 2020

International Studies Association (ISA) Travel Grant, March 2020

Politics Department Summer Fellowship (to conduct preliminary fieldwork), Summer 2019, UCSC

Politics Department Conference Support, 2018-2019, UCSC

Graduate Student Association (GSA) Travel Grant, Winter 2019, UCSC

Regents’ Fellowship, Fall 2017, UCSC

Academic Achievement Scholarship, Fall 2012 – Spring 2016, AUC

Academy of Liberal Arts’ (ALA) 2016 Honors Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research, AUC

Best Student Award, School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HUSS), AUC

Best Research Day Poster, School of Global Affairs and Public Policy (GAPP)

Dean’s List of Honors, Fall 2012 – Spring 2016

Student Union Travel Grant, AUC

Undergraduate Travel Grant, Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR), AUC

Selected Publications

Higazy, Ingy. “The Violence of Memory and Movement: Reading Cairo from its Ring Road.” Égypte/Monde arabe [Online], 23 (2021): http://journals.openedition.org/ema/14759.

Higazy, Ingy. “On Cultural Inspectors and the Culture of Inspection: Law and Artistic Production in Egypt,” in Law and Society in Post Revolution Egypt, 2011-2015. Forthcoming Fall 2019, Arabic: Dar Al-Shorouk, English: AUC Press.

Higazy, Ingy. “The Possibility of Lebanon: Economic Empowerment, Social Change, and the Founding of Greater Lebanon,” The Undergraduate Research Journal (URJe), [forthcoming]

Higazy, Ingy. “Fully-equipped or Ill-equipped? Occupation and the Question of Israeli-Jewish Settlements in International Law,” Public International Law Blog, June 2015.

Selected Presentations

TALKS AND GUEST LECTURES

"Spatial Justice and Everyday Violence in Post-Revolution Cairo," March 04, 2019

Delivered to undergraduate students in Politics 152 – Middle East Politics at UCSC

"Docile Bodies are Not Revolting Bodies: What Egypt Tells Us About Discipline and Punish," November 29, 2018

Delivered to undergraduate students in Politics 105C – Modern Political Thought at UCSC

ACADEMIC CONFERENCES AND PRESENTATIONS

2022 Workshop: Political Economy of Infrastructure and (De)Sectarianisation in the Middle East and North Africa. University of Lancaster, Lancaster, UK (June 20-21, 2022). 

2021 *Canceled Panel. Arteries of Power: The Politics of Mobility and Infrastructure in Egypt, 1970—Present. The Society for the History of Technology, New Orleans, Louisiana (November 20, 2021). 

2021 *Postponed (with Tamer ElShayyal). The Mother of All Bridges: Thee Sixth of October Flyover and the Urban History of Cairo, 1970—Present. T2M (November 13, 2021). 

2021 Arteries of Power: The Politics of Mobility and Infrastructure in Egypt, 1970—Present. Middle East Studies Association (MESA), Montréal, Canada (October 28, 2021). 

2021 The Problem of Movement: Planning Urban Mobility Infrastructure in Cairo, 1970—Present. Global Urban History Project, Emerging Scholars Conference, Virtual (April 24-25, 2021). 

2021 From EurAfrica to EuroMed: Infrastructures of Violence and Containment in the Mediterranean Sea. The Coloniality of Infrastructures: Eurafrican Legacies. The University of Basel, Switzerland, Virtual (January 14, 2021). 

2021 Infrastructures of Violence and Containment in the Mediterranean Sea. The European Workshops in International Studies (EWIS), Virtual (July 1-2, 2021). 

2020 *Canceled due to COVID-19 Pandemic. Is Egypt a Dead Case? Reflecting on Knowledge Production in/on Egypt (Roundtable with Yosra Hussein, Columbia University). British Society for Middle East Studies (BRISMES), Kent, UK (June 2020).

2020 *Canceled due to COVID-19 Pandemic. Narrating Defeat in the City Victorious: Cultural Production in Post-Revolutionary Cairo. International Studies Association at Ifrane, Ifrane, Morocco (June 2020). 

2020 *Canceled due to COVID-19 Pandemic. Infrastructures of Violence and Containment in the Mediterranean Sea. International Studies Association (ISA), Honolulu, Hawaii (March 2020).

2019 Infrastructures: Concrete and Constructed (Panel Chair). Middle East Studies Association (MESA), New Orleans, Louisiana (November 2019).

2019 Violent Infrastructures and the Production of Militarized Urban Space in Zones of Exception. Association for Political Theory (APT), Irvine, California (October 2019).

2019 Violent Infrastructures and the Production of Militarized Urban Space in Zones of Exception. International Studies Association (ISA), Toronto, Canada (March 2019).

2016 Egypt’s Peripheral Colony: Violence, Disciplinary Power, and State Making in the Sinai Peninsula, 1979—Present. Society for Socialist Studies at the Congress for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Calgary, Canada (May 2016). 

2016 The Possibility of Lebanon: Economic Empowerment, Social Change, and the Founding of Greater Lebanon, 1860-1920. Excellence in Undergraduate Research, Entrepreneurship, and Creative Achievement, AUC (April 2016). 

2016 Institutionalizing Creative Expression: The Law and Art Production in Egypt. Research Day, AUC (March 2016). *Won Best Undergraduate Research Poster.

2015 Institutionalizing Creative Expression: The Law and Art Production in Egypt. Law and Society in Egypt, 2011-2015, The Annual Conference of the Law and Society Research Unit, AUC (November 2015).

2015 Political Feuds and Education in the New State of Israel, 1948-1953. Excellence in Undergraduate Research, Entrepreneurship, and Creative Achievement, AUC (February 2015). 

2015 Chronicling L’Algérie Française: Settler-colonialism, Orientalism, and Colonial Policy, 1830-1914. Excellence in Undergraduate Research, Entrepreneurship, and Creative Achievement, AUC (February 2015). 

Selected Recordings

Media and Public Writing  

2021 Higazy, Ingy and The National. “Who Is Cairo Building Flyovers For?” The National, February 19, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RutB50pl4WM. 

2020      Higazy, Ingy. “UCSC International Students Increasingly Vulnerable Amid Wildcat Strike.” Middle East Report Online, February 27, 2020. 

Teaching Interests

TA Experience: 

Poli 105B - Early Modern Political Thought (with Professor Vanita Seth)

Poli 105C - Modern Political Thought (with Professor Thomas Serres)

Poli 70 - Global Politics (with Professor Ronnie Lipschutz)

Poli 17 - US and the World Economy (with Professor Matt Sparke)

Poli 120A - Congress, the President, and the Courts in American Politics (with Professor Dan Wirls)