Abstract
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.
Highlights
Since the beginning of the oil era, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, have experienced a massive increase in regional and international immigration, which translated into some of the highest ratio of foreign residents worldwide
Through a comparison between Riyadh and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, we look at internal tensions produced by cosmopolitan situations in Gulf contexts
Since the 2000s, while cosmopolitan claims made their way into official rhetoric and diplomacy, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) paradoxically adopted more restrictive immigration policies
Summary
Since the beginning of the oil era, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, have experienced a massive increase in regional and international immigration, which translated into some of the highest ratio of foreign residents worldwide. Asian and European migrants have brought their skills and their social, gender, cultural, religious and political identities to sparsely populated countries like Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and to larger societies like Oman and Saudi Arabia. In Qatar and the UAE, migrants have come to represent up to 90% of the population and 98% of the workforce. The legal and political context of the Gulf severely limits the formal incorporation of these foreign residents within host societies.
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