Milton Public Library

Western privilege, work, intimacy and postcolonial hierarchies in Dubai, Amélie Le Renard

eng

no index present

non fiction

Western privilege

electronic resource

dictionaries

Amélie Le Renard

Worlding the Middle East

work, intimacy and postcolonial hierarchies in Dubai

Nearly 90 percent of residents in Dubai are foreigners with no Emirati nationality. As in many global cities, those who hold Western passports share specific advantages: prestigious careers, high salaries, and comfortable homes and lifestyles. With this book, Amélie Le Renard explores how race, gender and class backgrounds shape experiences of privilege, and investigates the processes that lead to the formation of Westerners as a social group. Westernness is more than a passport, it is also, an identity that requires emotional and bodily labor. And, as they work, hook up, parent, and hire domestic help, Westerners chase Dubai's promise of socioeconomic elevation for the few. Through an ethnography informed by postcolonial and feminist theory, Le Renard reveals the diverse experiences and trajectories of white and non-white, male and female Westerners to understand the shifting and contingent nature of Westernness and also, its deep connection to whiteness and heteronormativity. Western Privilege offers a singular look at the lived reality of structural racism in cities of the global South

adult