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Noncitizen Belonging: US-Citizen Muslims in Sharjah
Abstract
Scholarship on Arabian Gulf states has primarily focused on noncitizen migrant exclusion and economic exploitation. The kafala (sponsorship) system as a legal means of entering these countries remains central to this literature. For these scholars, the contractually temporary nature of noncitizens’ migrations separates them from so-called privileged Gulf citizens. Research about the United Arab Emirates, where noncitizens greatly outnumber citizens (88 percent to 12 percent), presents the citizen-noncitizen divide as one of extremes of inclusion and exclusion. However, social scientists have recently begun to complicate perspectives that solely focus on noncitizen exclusion and economic exploitation. Drawing on Brubaker’s (1996, 2004, 2015) position that all nations are inclusive as well as exclusive, some scholars of the Gulf have demonstrated that migrants in the UAE are officially excluded from national belonging but are nevertheless included in ways outside of official citizenship. My long-term ethnographic research on US-citizen Muslims in Sharjah contributes to the growing literature about noncitizen inclusion and belonging in the UAE by illustrating how they contribute to national security. US-citizen Muslims stress that when they migrated to the UAE in the early 1990s, they were primarily searching for safety. From the 1970s to the 1990s, they developed relationships with Sharjah royalty through their membership in a global proselytizing movement called Tablighi Jama’at. Royal family members sponsored US-citizen Muslims, especially converts to Islam, to live in the UAE so that they could perform da’wa (invitation to practice Islam). By making da’wa, converts help to deter cultural threats to Emirati national identity. Upholding Emirati identity, for which Islam is essential, is particularly important in Sharjah. This emirate has won numerous accolades, which have branded it the “cultural capital” of the Gulf. Thus, these noncitizen converts’ role in preserving Emirati identity contributes to upholding Sharjah’s cultural identity, which is especially important for the emirate’s image. This research demonstrates one of the many ordinary interactions by which the noncitizen-citizen divide has been blurred in an effort towards seemingly coherent cultural production.
Discipline
Anthropology
Geographic Area
UAE
Sub Area
Transnationalism