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Signage on the Margins: Study of Unofficial Signs from Zone-57
Abstract
Based on an analysis of data from Qatar consisting of signage written in languages of the blue-collar temporary migrant workers, this paper examines how the use of unofficial languages and scripts, largely from South and Southeast Asia, contribute to the creation of a countrepublic(s) that not only serve(s) as a system of communication alternative to the dominant Arabic-English discourse, but also offer other possibilities including solidarity and belongingness. Blue-collars form a lion’s share of the non-national labor-force in Qatar and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. According to Gulf Labor Markets and Migration (GLMM), non-nationals constituted a substantial majority in the employment sector across all GCC countries, reaching up to 95% of the total workforce in Qatar. This is reflective of the proportion of non-nationals, which is 88% of the total population of about 3 million (“GLMM,” n.d.). The data consist of official and unofficial signage gathered from shops and businesses located in Zone-57, known as the Industrial Area, which is home to 313,754 workers (“Qatar Census 2020,” 2020) who speak languages such as Bengali, Malayalam, Hindi, Urdu, Singhalese, Tagalog, and Nepalese. The use of these languages assumes significance in the backdrop of Article 5 of Law-1 passed in 2012, which regulates public advertisements. According to the Law, one of the conditions for securing approval for commercial advertisements is that the content must be written in Arabic, while additional languages are allowed. The paper shows how these languages and scripts are used in Zone-57 to advertise products and services such as apartments and rooms for rent-sharing. These languages are also used for record-keeping by the owners of the businesses. They also create bonding among workers who socialize at these places and create their own identity and relate to their countrymen. I argue that the performance of the non-Arabic languages on the margins of the linguistic spaces demarcated by and for Arabic (and English) calls for re-centering the ethnography of “the streets”—those that are constituted by non-Arabic voices, which will also allow a better understanding of the Arabic voices. References Percentage of Nationals and Foreign Nationals in GCC. (n.d.). Retrieved December 18, 2021, from Gulf Labor Markets and Migration (GLMM) Program website: https://gulfmigration.grc.net/about/ Qatar Census 2020. (2020). Retrieved February 14, 2024, from Planning and Statistics Authority website: https://www.psa.gov.qa/en/statistics1/StatisticsSite/Census/Census2020/results/pages/result.aspx?rpttitle=p1_c1
Discipline
Linguistics
Geographic Area
Qatar
Sub Area
None