Abstract
My research project is concerned with queer subjectivities and the development of cybertechnologies in the UAE. My use of the term “queer subjectivities” is meant to encompass the liminality inherent in the expression of transgender politics, as opposed to the fixed, categorical nature of the term “gay identities.” The rise of such subjectivities and their extension into online discursive communities within the region of the Arab Gulf states is undoubtedly linked to the UAE’s concerted investment in the development of information technologies, particularly those pertaining to technologies of control. Using a textual and ethnographic analytical framework, I will combine the analysis of visual and textual material with structured and unstructured interviews I am conducting in the UAE. I will take as my subject what I have termed the national “post-oil generation,” a group which in many ways constitutes the symbolic configuration of the nation-state. With Emiratis outnumbered by expatriates by five to one, and with 34% of the Emirati population under 18, the generation born after the formation of the nation-state in 1971 and the first oil boom (from 1973 to 1982) is compelled to subscribe to notions of “authentic” Emirati national cultural identity. At the same time, they are producing multiple discourses that challenge that very identity. In my work, I focus on this generation’s use of space to engage in the exploration of alternative narratives of queerness.
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