Free speech and civil discourse

Producing expats, locals, and migrants in theUAE English-language blogosphere

Bibliographic Data

ID2268111
AuthorsNeha Vora (0009-0000-7615-2076, Lafayette College, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume18
Issue4
Pages787-807
Publication date2012-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1359-0987 • E-ISSN: 1467-9655
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-9655.2012.01792.x
OpenAlexW2105313696
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited44

This article examines the production of belonging and exclusion on a popularEnglish-language blog in theUnitedArabEmirates. TheUAE, and particularly the emirate ofDubai, has a large majority foreign resident population, which has little to no access to official citizenship. However, I argue that foreign residents narrate and perform belonging on various scales, including through the production of on-line 'publics'. As I explore in this article, the differences between citizens and non-citizens are not simply imported into on-line spaces, but on-line spaces and the interactions within them are constitutive of differentiated resident identities. In particular, I explore how theUAE English-language blogosphere is a space for state criticism, assertions of belonging, and interactions by and between groups of people that are not readily available in the rigidly divided social and geographical spaces ofDubai. The ability for citizens and non-citizens to interact in these on-line forums makes theUAEblogosphere a space where assumptions about differences between citizens, expatriates, and migrants that circulate in off-line discourses and technologies of governance are both negotiated and rehearsed by group members and administrators

Blogosphere · Citizenship · Criticism · Linguistics · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Population · Sociology · Space (punctuation) · State (computer science · The Internet · World Wide Web · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Law · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Multilingual Education and Policy

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