Abstract

This chapter looks at the capacity of communities to come together in times of rupture and imagine a collective future that promises better living conditions. We will address the process by which individuals assembled beyond the Egyptian uprising in 2011 and experimented with their aspired social change, through analyzing three case studies of cooperatives that came out of the protests. The case studies will be used to illustrate the role of imagination in bridging the gap between how society actually works from one side and its potential on the other. The cases are also used to highlight the potential of cooperatives in opening up venues for decentralized everyday forms of resistance of state power.