One spring day in early May, I had an opportunity to visit the
(CEDEJ) a French research institute. I left the hub of Cairo, crossed the Nile River and went to Giza Prefecture where the institute was located.
The CEDEJ was housed in a three-storied villa with a modest entrance. In contrast to the small entrance, the building had a large indoor space. On the first floor there was an open stack library and an archive that kept materials for statistics. The second floor was allocated to the administration and had the office of the director of the Center, the business office, the publishing section and a meeting room. On the top floor were the individual researchers' offices, a map area, and the computer room where they input data. The villa had a back garden which they also used for holding parties.
The Center, however, is planning to move to Talat Harb in central Cairo by September of 1998. The CEDEJ's e-mail address is: cedej@idsc.gov.eg.
The Center's history goes back to the French Egyptian Cooperation Treaty of 1968. Since 1980, the Center has been engaged in such regional studies that include Egypt, the Near East ( Proche-Orient ), and contemporary Sudan, with the support of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique ( CNRS ). It secures an outpost facility at Khartoum University in Sudan.
The primary goals of the Center are to do research on the Arab and Islamic world, and to diffuse the results of such studies. Secondly, its purposes lie in gathering materials, and thirdly, it is expected to foster the work of young researchers. In order to achieve these goals, the Center enjoys a great extent of support and cooperation from various organizations and universities such as : in Egypt, Cairo University, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, Azhar University, the National Center for Social Criminological Research, and Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, and in France, the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, such institutes as IREMAM in Aix-en- Provence, URBAMA in Tours, ORSTOM, INED, IAURIF and many others, and in addition to the above, Khartoum University, European Union, Arab League.
The Center's research activities are carried out by the six specific research groups called units. Units A-D are located at the CEDEJ, Unit E is at the Khartoum Outpost in Sudan, and Unit F is located at the Dubai Outpost.
| Research Unit | Researchers | Associate Researchers |
Trainees |
| A. Contemporary Politics, Laws and History | 11 | 1 | 13 |
B. Space and Society, Urban Observation
|
2 and Editor of the Newsletter | 2 | 5 |
| C. Economy & Population | 3 | 2 | 5 |
| D. Languages | 1 | 1 | None |
| E. Khartoum Outpost | 1 | 3 | 5 |
| F. Dubai Outpost | 1 | None | None |
* OUCC: Observatoire Urbain du Caire Contemporain.
Alongside the research activities the gathering of literature and other data occupies an important function of the CEDEJ. The present state of the collection is as follows :
1. 200,000 newspaper articles
2. A collection of 740 titles of academic periodicals; those magazines that were published in Egypt after 1876 are preserved on microfilm or microfiche.
3. A library of 20,000 titles of books, two thirds of which are in Arabic. The indexing of the books was completed in early 1994.
4. 600 titles of periodicals of and about statistics, which include the census results after 1882 and statistics about population, hygiene, education and economy.
The results of the Units' research and the new acquisitions at the library are published in the Center's publication.
The Center publishes the following non-periodical academic magazines : Egypte / Monde Arabe(in French, launched in June, 1990 ; 29 numbers have been issued.) and Misr wal-'Aalam al-'Arabi (in Arabic,[ the title is the same as the French title ], launched in 1993 ; five numbers have been issued). In addition to these, the Center publishes such serials as Dossier du CEDEJ, Recherches et Temoignages and others.
Left: The front entrance of CEDJE Right: Library
Left: Map collections room Right: A map showing regions covered by OUCC research program
MapInfo's graphical portrait of a map
Apart from research that is carried out individually by each of the six Units, there are also programs that are being pursued across the board.(1) In such programs a realm is found which is deeply related to the COE Project which the Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University is now pursuing. These research programs are "Observatoire Urbain du Caire Contemporain," "Urban Growth after 1800," and "Studies of the 1846 Census". These three studies are organically inter-related with one another. Also a study is being carried out utilizing various statistical data obtained from all sorts of maps, so far collected by the Geographical Information System ( GIS ) and including the population statistics of censuses from 1846 to 1996.
Let me introduce the research programs at the CEDEJ, focusing on "Studies of the 1846 Census," which, of all these studies, is most deeply related to the COE project.
At the Center, diverse themes, spanning the period from the early 19th century to the present, have been researched. The fore-mentioned three programs, each organically relating itself with one another, can be said to be an attempt at describing modern and contemporary history of Egypt centering around the urban history.
In Egypt there exist in abundance statistical materials that have not yet been utilized. The CEDEJ, with the help of Cairo University, extracted for re-aggregation and analysis 80,000 pieces of individual data from the 1846 census stored in the National Archives; it was the first step of historical demographic studies. The work started in 1994 and an interim report was presented at the Arab Region Population Conference held in Cairo in December 1996. ( See bibliographical notes. ) By 1997, most of the tasks were finished and two report volumes are scheduled to come out. The first is to be about Cairo and the second about the rest of Egypt.
This study will bring about the following:
1. A clear and detailed description of Egyptian population and society in the year of 1846.
2. To present the historical transition of Egyptian population and society from 1846 to 1882 ; the results of the census carried out in 1882 were already published. Such transition is to be presented for the first time
3. Facility to estimate the increase and movement of population in the early 19th century.
4. An academic contribution to historical demography
5. A contribution to socio-demographical discussions concerning sociological deviatin and social changes that fluctuations in population bring about.
In the meantime, the "Observatoire Urbain du Caire Contemporain," ( OUCC ) program, utilizing the results of "Studies of the 1846 Census," is research not only about Cairo but also extends all over Egypt through the use of 13 censuses chosen from those performed in 1846 to 1996. With maps as the base and utilizing GIS, they inputted 1,400 items of information per district for all of the 5,200 administrative districts of Egypt. ( That amounts to about 7,300,000 items in total. ) After inputting the data analyses are being done. All the information has been inputted on a map in such a way that it may clarify the dynamic regional changes and growth process of the cities. ( Data-processing software by Macintosh, MapInfo and Excel have been employed. )
This research program is also engaged in editing an electronic atlas of Cairo, and in 1998, it will be presented on a CD-ROM. This will show the growth of Cairo as the Capital of Egypt and its changes in urban form.
These research programs at the CEDEJ throw a significant light upon the social changes Egypt underwent in the early 19th century, the changes that no statistics or maps had adequately clarified until now. The programs will significantly explain the social changes that have taken place over a long period of time, through statistics and geographical information.
(Waseda University, School of Human Science)
Alleaume, G.& P. Fargues, "La Naissance d'une Statistique 
: Le Recensement de 1846 en 
," a paper presented at the Arab Regional Population Conference, Cairo, December 8-12, 1996.
CEDEJ, Programme de Recherche 1997-1998, October 1997.
Denis, E.& F. Moriconi-Ebrard, "La population de 
1897-1996, 
de la croissance," L' information geographique, no.1, 1998.
(1) There are six cross-section research programs currently pursued. They respectively focus on "Economic Liberalization," "Urban Growth after 1800," "The 1846 Census," "Sudan," "Egyptian Legal System" and "Editing of a Political Encyclopedia of Egypt."
