Gramsci in the postcolony: hegemony and anticolonialism in Nasserist Egypt

This article traces Gramsci's concept of hegemony as it travels from Southern Italy to Egypt, arguing that the concept ‘stretches’, following Fanon, through an encounter with the nexus of capitalism and (post-)colonialism. I explore a reading of Gramsci's concepts in a postcolonial context, paying special attention to colonialism and anticolonialism as constitutive of the absence or presence of hegemony. Through an exploration of the Nasserist project in Egypt – the only instance of hegemony in modern Egyptian history – I show how colonialism and anticolonialism were central to the formation of Nasserist hegemony. Drawing on Edward Said, I look at two particular aspects of hegemony as a traveling theory to bring to light some theoretical entanglements that arise when Gramsci travels, in turn highlighting the continuing theoretical potential thinking through such entanglements, as well as of thinking with Gramsci in Egypt and the broader postcolonial world.