Questioning Cosmopolitanism through the Biographical Trajectories of French Residents of Abu Dhabi and Dubai

Abstract

Owing to their diverse populations and particular social configurations, the United Arab Emirates offer a unique urban context in which to question the notion of cosmopolitanism and its daily manifestations, since the main cities of the Emirates maximize occasions for intercultural interaction while maintaining major economic divisions and social hierarchies in most parts of daily life. While national and ethnic categories in the Emirates are often presented in the literature as being rigid, this paper argues that a biographical approach allows for a finer analysis of cosmopolitan situations. The French residents of Abu Dhabi and Dubai, relatively privileged migrants, position themselves along a wide spectrum of places and activities, raising different social and urban issues. Based on 26 months of participant observation in Abu Dhabi and Dubai and 12 in-depth interviews with French residents of the UAE, this paper shows that their forms of sociability, social practices, and international mobility work together to shape diverse and sometimes paradoxical forms of openness to national, ethnic, or social “others”.