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Basedon original fieldwork, this article examines how Nubians in Egypt have mobilized to demand a return to ancestral lands along the Nile River. It begins with a historically informed analysis explaining how any attempts to make demands from the Egyptian state long have been quashed, effectively constraining any comprehensive mobilization. It thereafter argues that the emergence of several unprecedented legal and political opportunities in the past decade paved the way for substantial Nubian mobilization. This culminated in a Nubian representation in the drafting process of the 2014 Egyptian Constitution, and a subsequent constitutional reference to Nubian return. Finally, this article explores how Nubian activists have deployed competing legal and historical frames in demanding return to ancestral lands. These frames range from the right of return based on international indigenous/minority rights frameworks, to drawing parallels with the Palestinian right of return, to a less confrontational development discourse rooted in the displacement of the Nubians in the 1960s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article tackles the problem of political-institutional change in undemocratic regimes commonly considered impervious to meaningful political contention. Egypt is one of the contemporary world's most stolid authoritarian regimes, a superpresidential system in which all effective power resides in the executive. It has been governed by uninterrupted emergency law since 1981 and since 1992 has experienced a further process of political deliberalization. Simultaneously, Egyptian politics have witnessed the rise of new political actors: courts, human rights organizations, and professional associations. What explains such manifestations of political dynamism in the midst of political stasis? This article contends that two processes of legal mobilization and internationalization have interacted to produce revived courts, new human rights organizations, and transformed professional unions. This interpretation departs from the emphasis on authoritarian resilience in the Middle East, advancing a more relational conception of state-society relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]