Review (PDF) Impossible Citizens: Dubai's Indian Diaspora
Indian communities have existed in the Gulf emirate of Dubai for more than a century. Since the 1970s, workers from South Asia have flooded into the emirate, enabling Dubai's huge construction boom. They now compose its largest noncitizen population. Though many migrant families are middle-class and second-, third-, or even fourth-generation residents, Indians cannot become legal citizens of the United Arab Emirates. Instead, they are all classified as temporary guest workers. In Impossible Citizens, Neha Vora draws on her ethnographic research in Dubai's Indian-dominated downtown to explore how Indians live suspended in a state of permanent temporariness.While their legal status defines them as perpetual outsiders, Indians are integral to the Emirati nation-state and its economy. At the same time, Indians—even those who have established thriving diasporic neighborhoods in the emirate—disavow any interest in formally belonging to Dubai and instead consider India their home. Vora shows how these multiple and conflicting logics of citizenship and belonging contribute to new understandings of contemporary citizenship, migration, and national identity, ones that differ from liberal democratic models and that highlight how Indians, rather than Emiratis, are the quintessential—yet impossible—citizens of Dubai.
Paperback: 264 pages
Publisher: Duke University Press Books (March 18, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0822353938
ISBN-13: 978-0822353935
Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.6 x 9.1 inches
Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #777,285 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #11 in Books > History > Middle East > United Arab Emirates #1117 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Emigration & Immigration #5624 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Anthropology > Cultural
Challenging us to look beyond the received wisdom and rote scholarship about immigration, citizenship and identity in the contemporary world, Neha Vora's book is a great one in many many ways--especially if you've been a student of the humanities for a while. It is rare to find a scholar who can actually teach you (if you are a migrant from the 'third world' living and working elsewhere and if you are trying to think more clearly and in new ways about globalisation, culture, migration, diaspora, identity etc). I can't think of another book that has made me think about historiography, sociology, economic determinism and so much else in the field of method and generally the production of knowledge as this book has. Simply because Vora's book is a new path, forcing you to think anew, accept the challenge of thinking and living and coming to grips with the world.Identity, agency, location, political geography, learn to think about these in refreshing ways.There is also a great discussion on youtube where Prof Vohra presents the views in her book. The best part in the discussion is a paper by Professor Attiya Ahmed on the adoption of islamic practices and piety by domestic workers in Kuwait. It is an amazing and important intervention on the whole issue of labour, migration, citizenship, "cross cultural" encounters etc. Prof Vohra intervenes at one point to emphasise a point made by Prof Attiya--this is a crucial point in the discussion. A must-watch video if you are interested in these matters. Prof Attiya's paper is just superb.
Garbage. I advice you not to waste your money and time on this book. The writer is looking for glory for her people outside her country. If you want to unmask the fallacy the writer's ideas and make her look speechless..! Just ask her this questions.. WHY INDIAN "DISPORA" IN OTHER COUNTRIES COULDN'T BUILD LIKE DUBAI... Merely she wants all indians in UAE to get the citizenship just because they worked there.. lame and weak reasoning. if it was my choice I would have given it less than one star,
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