ʿUmar (38) was born in Saudi Arabia and moved to Cairo when he was six years old. He has always lived in the area of al-Munīra and Sayyida Zaynab, where he also attended a madrasa,^[i] followed by university, where he studied media. After his studies, he worked as an assistant director for an insurance company. The work paid well, and he enjoyed his job a lot. However, he could only work there until the political upheavals in Egypt during the Arab Spring. His story resonates with other people’s accounts of career change in the same period. In the research paper Still Waiting: Labor, Revolution, and the Struggle for Social Justice in Egypt, anthropologist Sabae examines the issues of precarity and vulnerability that marked the lives of both workers and those formally classified as “unemployed” during this time. She shows that “by April 2013 it was reported that 4,500 factories had closed down, resulting in the dismissal or layoff of thousands of workers” (Sabea 2014).

These trajectories, moving from relatively secure formal employment into precarious or unwanted service work, are not isolated cases but part of a broader pattern in Egypt and surrounding countries since 2013 (Sayigh 2024). The displacement described by my interviewees illustrates how the reconfiguration of political and economic power is experienced in everyday working lives. After 2013, ʿUmar decided to work at a café in Maʿādī and opened a café in Minyā. However, traveling back and forth was not ideal. Looking for something closer, he began exploring opportunities in Sayyida Zaynab. When the chance arose to take over a café in the neighborhood, after its previous owner was forced to give it up following COVID-19, ʿUmar bought the business. Four years ago, he started working there. He completely renovated the space, repainting the walls and searching for staff. He eventually recruited his team through a Facebook group for Egyptians looking for work, where he found the seven employees who still work with him today.

Around the same time, he moved into a nearby apartment with his mother and brother. His brother is also his closest colleague: they started the café together, and he is the first person ʿUmar calls when there is a problem with the business. Alongside his apartment around the corner, the café functions as a second home. He spends most of his hours in and around it, together with his employees and what he jokingly describes as the most important family member of all: his cat. As several customers put it, “The cat is like the landmark of the café; everyone knows and loves him.”^[ii]