From ‘Trucial State’ to ‘Postcolonial’ City? The Imaginative Geographies of British Expatriates in Dubai

Abstract

This collaborative article adopts a postcolonial theoretical framework to examine the imaginative geographies of British expatriates in Dubai. The analysis compares qualitative data from two time periods: 1968–71, immediately prior to the Federation of the United Arab Emirates when this area of the Arabian Peninsular was known as the ‘Trucial States’, and 2002–04, some 30 years post-Federation. We argue that imaginative geographies of Self/Other are evident in the practices and discourses of both time periods, and, in spite of their being reconfigured, there are strong continuities in evidence. These imaginative geographies help to constitute the British (expatriate) Self, while contributing to the separateness of the British expatriate community in the colonial and postcolonial contexts. In order to trace the dis/continuities in this process, we focus on four sets of cultural practices and the discourses that surround them: social clubs, dress, food, and excursions.

Keywords:

• Postcolonialism
• Expatriates
• Dubai
• British Emigration
• Cultural Practices

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the workshop participants, Meike Fechter and the anonymous reviewer for feedback on this article. Anne Coles would like to thank all those who shared their memories with her, whether in writing or verbally, enabling this comparison to be made. Katie Walsh would like to thank the ESRC for funding the research this article draws on (Post-Graduate Studentship R42200134499) and the British expatriates who shared their time and stories in Dubai.

Notes

1. In this article we have had difficulty choosing the most appropriate collective identity terminology to refer to the people we are discussing. ‘Expatriate’ is certainly a contested term, but we use it here for reasons outlined in the introductory article to this issue by Fechter and Walsh. As is evident from the text, we use ‘local Arabs’ as a way of referring to the Arab population of the region in the pre-Federation period. Of course, ‘local(s)’ is also a contested anthropological term and we do not wish to set up an artificial dichotomy in opposition to migrants. Yet, we also include the word local(s) to distance ourselves from any homogenising discursive uses of the term ‘Arab’. For the post-Federation period, we use the widely adopted term ‘Emirati nationals’.

2. Unlike Knowles (2005) and Leonard (2008), our analysis does not draw on theories of whiteness. While we acknowledge a common discursive slippage between notions of culture and race in the Dubai context, we lack the empirical evidence to pursue the processes by which this occurs.

3. We do not consider the construction of Britishness in relation to Other transnational migrant groups. However, we recognise the need to do so as part of a full analysis of Dubai, not least because migrants have mostly filled low-skilled jobs so that nationals have typically not been subordinate to the British either in domestic or working environments.

4. The highest proportions of migrants were from Iran, India and Pakistan. While these groups were found throughout the economy, the high proportion of men aged 21–30 testified to an increasing stream of young unskilled or semi-skilled temporary workers from the sub-continent. By 2002 there were well over 2 million migrants from South Asia working in the UAE as a whole.

5. As elsewhere, there are also some social groups explicitly for people of nationalities subsumed within British national identity, such as the Caledonian Society and The Dubai St George's Society, reflecting the way in which many British expatriates often feel a stronger sense of belonging to sub-British national identities.