‘We’re not like the newbies’: belonging among Dubai’s long-term residents

ABSTRACT

In this research on middle-class, long-term residents of Dubai, I explore how long-term residents experience belonging and exclusion in a country where they cannot legally be permanent. I first argue that my interlocutors express belonging through accumulated knowledge, memories and familiarity with the UAE in contrast to their own countries, as well as through contrasting themselves to newly arrived residents who know little about the UAE. In doing so, long-term residents use expressions of belonging and an exclusionary rhetoric similar to the one Emiratis use. However, despite this connection and affinity, my interlocutors feel that they are seen just as any other short-term resident. There is no legal status that distinguishes them from newcomers, no form of dress (such as the national dress) that marks their belonging, nor a visible or recognised category that differentiates them, which highlights the limits of belonging in these Gulf states.

KEYWORDS:

• Citizenship
• belonging
• UAE

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Although in 2021 the UAE has announced that they will naturalise some residents, this is not an application process for long-term residents but a nomination process for a select few, often investors and those who are seen to make major economic contribution to the UAE. Otherwise, citizenship is passed down by birth and there is no real application process for it (except in select cases such as children of Emirati mothers, who can apply for that).

2 Even after the introduction of the Golden Visa, which is available to a select few, and which provides a 5-year visa, or a maximum of a 10-year visa.

3 The literature has discussed categories beyond citizen/expat, such as Lori’s (2019) book Offshore Citizens. Also, the literature on the Gulf often refers to the way that ‘expats’ is a term used to denote middle-class and elite non-citizens, and that migrant experiences of low-income residents is very different from those of ‘expats’ (Ali 2011; Vora 2013; Kanna 2011; Kathiravelu 2016). This is the case among my interlocutors as well, who are unlikely to use the word ‘expat’ to refer to low-income non-citizens working in construction jobs, for instance. Therefore, when my interlocutors are using the word expat, they are also placing themselves in a certain category of non-citizens, of middle-class or elite residents (Walsh 2018).

4 In terms of the UAE, Noora Lori’s (2019) book also addresses a category beyond citizen/non-citizen. However, this is an entirely different group than the one I refer to here.

5 Mona Kareem. June 22, 2020. Twitter. https://twitter.com/monakareem/status/1275092518426808320.