Looking for the authentic other: Cosmopolitan ethos and orientalism in French migrants’ experiences in Abu Dhabi

2021 ◽  
pp. 0308275X2110596
Author(s):  
Claire Cosquer
Keyword(s):  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Abu Dhabi ◽  
National Narratives ◽  
Resident Population ◽  
Non Local

French migrants in Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates – UAE) are often portrayed as money-driven and greedy, notably by their compatriots. Common representations of the Gulf area as extraordinarily affluent reinforce these suspicions and prompt migrants to justify their expatriation. This moral effort takes on the form of a cosmopolitan ethos. French residents in Abu Dhabi generally express a strong desire to get out of the ‘expatriate bubble’, to meet the ‘locals’, and to experience ‘difference’ and ‘diversity’. They perform migration as an opportunity for cultural enrichment and continuously search for otherness. Abu Dhabi’s unusual demographics and singular coloniality generate complex tensions around these cosmopolitan desires. French delineations of (valuable) otherness conflate ‘local’ and ‘national’, largely replicating orientalist structures of perception. These perceptive schemes homogenize the UAE and erase its ‘diversity’ within the cosmopolitan rationale. French delineations of localness also draw on national narratives constructing the country as ‘Arab’, while casting the foreign resident population (89% of the total UAE population) as non-local and temporary. Drawing on ethnographic field research, the article analyses expatriate cosmopolitan desires for difference as the encounter of Western orientalism and Emirati national narratives of Arabness.

scholarly journals Migrant Cosmopolitanism in Emirati and Saudi Cities: Practices and Belonging in Exclusionary Contexts

2021 ◽  
pp. 151-165
Author(s):  
Hélène Thiollet ◽  
Laure Assaf
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Abu Dhabi ◽  
National Narratives ◽  
Migrant Communities ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Mass Migration ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Situated Perspective ◽  
Over Time

AbstractMass migration to the Gulf cities has produced, over time, de facto cosmopolitan situations. Even though cosmopolitanism is somewhat present in national narratives and official propaganda, foreign residents face exclusionary contexts where policies and practices keep them excluded from the national community. This chapter unpacks the internal tensions characteristic of cosmopolitanism in the exclusionary contexts of the Gulf by comparing cities in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. These tensions operate within migrants’ everyday practices and modes of consumption in urban spaces. We argue that these practices are best understood as a form of segregated cosmopolitanism through which the different migrant communities both acknowledge (and at times consume) urban diversity and maintain certain boundaries. Building upon the analysis of discourses and ethnographic fieldwork in Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and Jeddah, this research engages with theories of cosmopolitanism from a situated perspective. It moves away from the classical, normative approach to cosmopolitanism and highlights the fragility of everyday cosmopolitan situations.

Educating Ms. Fatima

1970 ◽  
pp. 56-63
Author(s):  
Tim Walters ◽  
Susan Swan ◽  
Ron Wolfe ◽  
John Whiteoak ◽  
Jack Barwind
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Arabian Peninsula ◽  
High Technology ◽  
Emerging Technology ◽  
Abu Dhabi ◽  
Free Trade Zones ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
K 12

The United Arab Emirates is a smallish Arabic/Islamic country about the size of Maine located at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Though currently oil dependent, the country is moving rapidly from a petrocarbon to a people-based economy. As that economy modernizes and diversifies, the country’s underlying social ecology is being buffeted. The most significant of the winds of change that are blowing include a compulsory, free K-12 education system; an economy shifting from extractive to knowledge-based resources; and movement from the almost mythic Bedouin-inspired lifestyle to that of a sedentary highly urbanized society. Led by resource-rich Abu Dhabi and Dubai, the federal government has invested heavily in tourism, aviation, re-export commerce, free trade zones, and telecommunications. The Emirate of Dubai, in particular, also has invested billions of dirhams in high technology. The great dream is that educated and trained Emiratis will replace the thousands of foreign professionals now running the newly emerging technology and knowledge-driven economy.

Biostratigraphic Constraints on the Shuaiba Formation, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew M. Gombos ◽  
Christian J. Strohmenger ◽  
T.C. Huang
Keyword(s):  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Abu Dhabi

The United Arab Emirates: Statehood and Nation-Building in a Traditional Society

2005 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 357-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frauke Heard-Bey
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Abu Dhabi ◽  
Traditional Society ◽  
National State ◽  
Gulf Countries ◽  
The Individual

Nationals represent barely 20% of the population in the United Arab Emirates, but form the economically and socially privileged group of UAE citizens. The Rulers of the seven emirates were able to retain the historical loyalty of the “Emiratis” by advancing the economic development of the individual states, while Abu Dhabi-financed federal development helped to create a viable national state. Democratization is not of the same urgency as in some neighboring Gulf countries.

scholarly journals Investigating Relationships Between Learning Environment Perceptions, Motivation and Self-Regulation for Female Science Students in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill M Aldridge ◽  
Kate Rowntree
Keyword(s):  
Learning Environment ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Science Classroom ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Female Students ◽  
Abu Dhabi ◽  
Government Schools ◽  
Psychosocial Learning Environment ◽  
And Gender

AbstractThe global lack of student motivation towards learning science and gender imbalance in STEM careers provided the impetus for this study, which had two key aims: (1) to examine the influence of female students’ perceptions of the psychosocial learning environment on their motivation towards and self-regulation in science learning,; and (2) to investigate the influence of their reported motivation on their self-regulation of effort. Data were collected from 338 female students in grades 6 to 9 science classes across 16 government schools in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. Structural equation modelling was used to explore the hypothesised relationships, which indicated that there were statistically significant relationships between learning environment perceptions, motivation and self-regulation. The results provide exigent information to both teachers, policy-makers and researchers with regard to the influences of the psychosocial learning environment on female students’ motivation towards science, as well as the influence of motivation towards science on their self-regulatory behaviour within science classroom settings.

scholarly journals Assessment of Hospital Rooming-in Practice in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates: A Cross-Sectional Multi-Center Study

Nutrients ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 2318
Author(s):  
Zainab Taha ◽  
Ahmed Ali Hassan ◽  
Ludmilla Wikkeling-Scott ◽  
Ruba Eltoum ◽  
Dimitrios Papandreou
Keyword(s):  
Logistic Regression ◽  
Hospital Stay ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Gestational Age ◽  
World Health ◽  
Abu Dhabi ◽  
Multivariable Logistic Regression Analysis ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Convenience Sample ◽  
Multivariable Logistic Regression

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends rooming-in to reduce infant mortality rates. Little research has been done to assess practices such as rooming-in and its relation to breastfeeding in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence of rooming-in during hospital stay among mothers with infants six months old and below, in addition to other associated factors in Abu Dhabi, UAE. This study utilized a sub-sample extracted from a dataset based on a convenience sample of mothers who were recruited from governmental maternal and child health centers as well as from the community. The purpose of the original research was to evaluate infant and young children’s feeding practices. A pre-tested questionnaire was used during interviews with mothers once ethical clearance was in place. Multivariable logistic regression was conducted to describe the results. The original sample included 1822 participants, of which 804 infants met the inclusion criteria. The mean age for mothers and infants was 30.3 years and 3.5 months, respectively. The rate of rooming-in during hospital stay was 97.5%. Multivariable logistic regression analysis indicated factors associated with not rooming-in were low maternal age (Adjusted Odds Ratios (AOR) = 1.15, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.03, 1.30), low gestational age (GA) (AOR = 1.90, 95% CI: 1.52, 2.36), abnormal pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) (AOR = 3.77, 95 % CI: 1.22, 11.76), and delayed initiation of breastfeeding (AOR = 4.47, 95 % CI: 1.08, 18.48). In the context of the high rate of rooming-in revealed in this study, there should be a focus on those groups who do not room-in (i.e., younger women and those with babies of a younger gestational age). Rooming-in practice provides self-confidence in taking care of a baby, knowledge about breastfeeding, and stimulates early-phase lactation.

scholarly journals Restructuring Graduate Medical Education to Meet the Health Care Needs of Emirati Citizens

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sawsan Abdel-Razig ◽  
Hatem Alameri
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Medical Education ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Graduate Medical Education ◽  
Health Care Systems ◽  
Abu Dhabi ◽  
Care Needs ◽  
Graduate Medical ◽  
Comprehensive Health ◽  
The Government

Abstract Many nations are struggling with the design, implementation, and ongoing improvement of health care systems to meet the needs of their citizens. In the United Arab Emirates, a small nation with vast wealth, the lives of average citizens have evolved from a harsh, nomadic existence to enjoyment of the comforts of modern life. Substantial progress has been made in the provision of education, housing, health, employment, and other forms of social advancement. Having covered these basic needs, the government of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, is responding to the challenge of developing a comprehensive health system to serve the needs of its citizens, including restructuring the nation's graduate medical education (GME) system. We describe how Abu Dhabi is establishing GME policies and infrastructure to develop and support a comprehensive health care system, while also being responsive to population health needs. We review recent progress in developing a systematic approach for developing GME infrastructure in this small emirate, and discuss how the process of designing a GME system to meet the needs of Emirati citizens has benefited from the experience of “Western” nations. We also examine the challenges we encountered in this process and the solutions adopted, adapted, or specifically developed to meet local needs. We conclude by highlighting how our experience “at the GME drawing board” reflects the challenges encountered by scholars, administrators, and policymakers in nations around the world as they seek to coordinate health care and GME resources to ensure care for populations.

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