Now showing 1 - 10 of 12
  • Publication
    “Arabic Pop Art” on Instagram: Questioning the Representations of Arabness and Khaleejiness in Digital Art
    Instagram, the second most widely used social networking platforms in the world, is a privileged place for artists and art lovers to showcase artworks and visual content to a larger audience. In the Middle East and North Africa region, one Instagram account, @arabic.pop.art, currently gathers 399,000 followers by reposting daily various forms of digital work produced in the region. Based on the analysis of all the posts published there from March 2019 to March 2020, I discuss the important presence of Gulf citizens and residents among both the artists and the followers of this Instagram account and how Arab and gulfic/khaleeji symbols, icons and consumerist items are being used in the published artworks. Through its content and given its popularity, this account is actively participating in highlighting Arab youth pop culture and shaping representations of Arab and regional identities (Arabness and Khaleejiness).
  • Publication
    Questioning Cosmopolitanism through the Biographical Trajectories of French Residents of Abu Dhabi and Dubai
    Owing to their diverse populations and particular social configurations, the United Arab Emirates offer a unique urban context in which to question the notion of cosmopolitanism and its daily manifestations, since the main cities of the Emirates maximize occasions for intercultural interaction while maintaining major economic divisions and social hierarchies in most parts of daily life. While national and ethnic categories in the Emirates are often presented in the literature as being rigid, this paper argues that a biographical approach allows for a finer analysis of cosmopolitan situations. The French residents of Abu Dhabi and Dubai, relatively privileged migrants, position themselves along a wide spectrum of places and activities, raising different social and urban issues. Based on 26 months of participant observation in Abu Dhabi and Dubai and 12 in-depth interviews with French residents of the UAE, this paper shows that their forms of sociability, social practices, and international mobility work together to shape diverse and sometimes paradoxical forms of openness to national, ethnic, or social “others”.
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  • Publication
    Privilege in Migration: The Benefits of Nationality for Northern Migrants in the Middle East
    The term “expatriation”, contested but frequently used, encompasses the idea that Westerners are not “average” migrants, if not at all migrants and it contributes to dismiss discussions on their privileges. Some researchers have been working on revealing the racial and class privileges and how it affects the migratory experiences of the so-called “expats”. In this chapter, I examine the roles that the nationality plays in the migratory experience and the living conditions of Northern migrants residing in a specific region, the Middle East. Based on extensive fieldworks I conducted in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (2012–2015) and in the United Arab Emirates (2017–2020), I will highlight how privileges shape western migration in the Middle East. The OPT and the UAE, although presenting different economic and social contexts, offer interesting illustrations of the way Westerners are benefiting from their passport to migrate as well as the cultural and symbolic capital attached to their nationalities: languages, education, professional experiences, and cultural imaginaries can be mobilized by individuals to find interesting job opportunities. In this chapter, focusing on two types of privileges - the freedom of movement and the access and position in the local job market – I argue that nationality plays a crucial role in both, the conditions of migration as well as the relationships with both the locals and the others (underprivileged) migrants.
      25
  • Publication
    Abu Dhabi public spaces : Urban encounters, social diversity and informality
    (Motivate Publishing, 2021) ; ;
    Lazaridis, Kyriazis
    Abu Dhabi Public Spaces is the result of a two-year research project on urbanity and the behavioral mapping of the inhabitants’ daily practices. Focusing on fourteen well-known public spaces – both formal and informal – throughout Abu Dhabi, the authors highlight their hidden qualities and describe how its inhabitants create an original city life for themselves. The book expertly combines sociology, urban studies and architecture to understand the city’s cultural diversity, social encounters and the interaction between formality and informality in public spaces.
      118
  • Publication
    Les espaces publics d’Abu Dhabi: un terrain de jeu pour une expérience pédagogique et scientifique
    La recherche et l’enseignement sont les deux piliers de notre métier et pourtant, l’articulation concrète de ces deux missions reste peu mise en avant dans nos discussions et nos publications. J’explore dans cet article la manière dont nos recherches peuvent, d’un part, nourrir nos enseignements méthodologiques, et d’autre part, bénéficier de l’implication des étudiants et de leurs compétences propres. Je m’appuierai sur le travail mené en tant que chercheure et enseignante de sociologie dans le cadre d’un programme de recherche interdisciplinaire (géographie, architecture et sociologie) sur les espaces publics à Abu Dhabi (Emirats arabes unis, 2018-2020). Dans un contexte où l’enquête de terrain est délicate à mener, les espaces publics se sont révélés des lieux d’enquête et de formation privilégiés et où les étudiants nous offraient une entrée supplémentaire pour la compréhension des rapports sociaux à la vill
      80  107
  • Publication
    « Internationaux » et engagements politiques dans les Territoires palestiniens occupés
    (Diacritiques Éditions, 2020)
    Penser la question palestinienne à partir de réseaux, penser le concept de réseaux à travers la question palestinienne : cet ouvrage entend répondre à deux préoccupations majeures. Il interroge un concept en vogue dans les sciences sociales ces dernières années. Il questionne aussi des dynamiques palestiniennes qui ne sont pas forcément manifestes. Les différents chapitres de cet ouvrage montrent ainsi comment des Palestiniens ont défié des contraintes territoriales par le net, fonctionnent en réseau dans l’ombre de l’institution protoétatique de l’Autorité nationale palestinienne, reproduisent ou luttent contre les hiérarchies de statuts à Ramallah, créent de la citoyenneté dans les contraintes de la diaspora, étendent la Palestine à travers l’art, du local au global, mais aussi comment des « internationaux » non palestiniens tissent de nouvelles sociabilités et modes d’agir dans les Territoires palestiniens occupés ou perpétuent les usages et les significations d’une lutte palestinienne qui est aussi un symbole transcontinental. Ce sont autant d’usages des réseaux qui font émerger, plus que des discours, des pratiques du quotidien dans certains cas, des modes d’agir militants dans d’autres. Créatifs et flexibles, ceux-ci prennent place dans des mondes palestiniens quadrillés par des régimes de contraintes devenus particulièrement « inflexibles ».
      491  51
  • Publication
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  • Publication
    Behavioral Mapping Of Abu Dhabi's Public Spaces: Urban Research Photography And Cultural Clashes
    While the study of quotidian practices and daily experiences is now fully appreciated in western urbanism, it is still at an embryonic stage in the emerging new cities of the Middle East. is paper presents an ongoing research project of social-behavioral mapping of Abu Dhabi’s public spaces and its correlation with the existing urban morphology, in an attempt to shed empirical light and update the local public space design guidelines. Photography is one of the observation tools used. However, due to sociocultural conditions, special techniques had to be used. Time- lapse, high-contrasted, undirected street photography was key to visualize both formal and informal activities in the realm of the private.
      92  56