The epigraph explains how the call to prayer functions as a sonic reminder of a sacral community. In this article I explore how sound is also connected to activists’ masculinities and space where the soundscape of the adhan in Cairo transforms from desired sacral sound to unwanted noise atmospheres (see Eisenlohr 2018). The aim is also to understand the “subjective, ‘political’ attribute of noise” in relation to gender and belonging (Pickering and Rice 2017: 1). Focusing on sound or noise in relation to gender makes it possible to see how “sensory knowledge develops through ongoing interaction with the environment” (Rice 2010: S43). Listening can create community or dissolve it. Understanding gender through the prism of sound unfolds the tensions among (and ongoing creation of) specific gendered subjects in relation to state power, communities, and space.
In Cairo, political unrest and its repression over the past decade (indeed,...
