Everyday Youth Cultures in the Gulf Peninsula

Changes and Challenges

Emanuela Buscemi, Ildiko Kaposi, Emanuela Buscemi, Ildiko Kaposi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000287318
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Economic Conditions
• Index: Economics

Focusing on the struggles of youth in the Arabian Gulf to find their place in their encounters with modernity, Everyday Youth Cultures in the Gulf Peninsula explores how global forces are reshaping everyday cultural experiences in authoritarian societies.

A deeper understanding of Gulf youth emerges from reading about the everyday lives and struggles, opportunities, and contributions of youth who, in the process of developing their personal identities, are also incrementally transforming their societies and cultures. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar, the chapters bring fresh insight into Gulf youth microcultures from the ground and invite dialogue by engaging young local and foreign academics in the discussion.

In light of the general difficulties of accessing Gulf societies, the book's nuanced, richly detailed depictions of everyday life can be of interest to academic research in Middle East studies, youth sociology, political science and anthropology, as well as to business and governmental decision-making.

Part 1

Spaces of engagement and contestation

Chapter 1

Reshaping political participation in nondemocratic regimes

Youth initiatives and urban practices in Kuwait

Emanuela Buscemi

Introduction

The present chapter examines youth initiatives and urban practices in post-Arab Spring Kuwait. I argue that youth initiatives and urban practices in the city contribute to reforming dominant narratives, quietly defying the government’s nationalistic rhetoric: the boundaries between private and public spaces become porous, new forms of socialities and socialisation are made possible, and political engagement shifts to informal venues. The multiplicity of practices exemplified by quotidian youth cultures and the creation or repurposing of urban spaces transform them and renews possibilities of living the city beyond the strict religious, social and cultural prescriptions.

However, Kuwaiti youth urban practices also seek to bridge the past and the present by appealing to the local and regional cultural politics. Youth cultures are influenced by global processes and new media, producing a transculturation in which “an innovative, composite and complex reality emerges […] that is not a mechanic agglomerate of attributes, nor is it a mosaic, but a new, original, and independent phenomenon” (Malinowski, 2009, p. 5). It is precisely the originality of these merging and transformative processes that attests to the vitality and creativity of a culture (Rama, 2009, p. 33) and, thus, contributes to the widening of local narratives.

Kuwaiti youth geographies of belonging have also been profoundly affected by the local Arab Spring-inspired protests (Buscemi, 2016) aimed at readjusting current relations of power in the framework of allegiance to the regime. However, the criminalisation of activists and the further limitation of individual freedoms has shifted youth engagement to more informal venues while encouraging subdued cultural forms of expression.

The present chapter relies on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Kuwait between 2011 and 2016.

Youth quotidian cultures between cultural politics and political culture

According to Linda Herrera and Asef Bayat, a number of factors combine to give political significance to youth cultures in the Middle East, including demographic changes, the neoliberal globalised economies, the growing impact of Islam, the unprecedented education attainments, and the rising levels of unemployment:

[youth] expressions of interests, aspirations and socioeconomic capacities appear to be producing a new cultural politics. In other words, the cultural behavior of Muslim youth can be understood to be located in the political realm and representing a new arena of contestation for power.

(2010, p. 3)

In this sense, the relationship between political marginality and regime instability (Chaaban, 2008, quoted in Herrera and Bayat, 2010) can be interpreted as a tight one. The resilience of Gulf monarchies might be shakier than it appears, as the failure to grant political concessions and reform the establishment can result in a deepening of contention. The rentier contract between the state and the citizens, however, “does not necessarily result in depoliticized, compliant and apathetic «rentier citizens»” (Kinnimont, 2015, p. 28).

Quotidian youth cultures open up the discussion on the need to theorise the cultural as an active component of the political, and their relevance in post-contention authoritarian and closed regimes. Youth cultures, thus, reshape political participation and reconceptualise it beyond the official sites of decision-making and institutionalised political participation (Frossart, 2014; Alhamad, 2008). Moreover, the everyday becomes the site of re-composition between politics and culture, and between contestation, resistance, and participation through political culture and cultural politics. According to Sonia Alvarez, Evelina Dagnino, and Arturo Escobar, political culture amounts to

the political social construction in everyday society of what counts as «political» […]. In this way political culture is the domain of practices and institutions, carved out of the totality of social reality, that historically comes to be considered as properly political.

(1998, p. 8)

In a closed and authoritarian context, political culture predominantly adheres to institutionalised forms of participation. Conversely, cultural politics denotes the interpenetration between culture and politics as “the way that culture—including people’s attitudes, opinions, beliefs, and perspectives, as well as the media and arts—shapes society and political opinion, and gives rise to social, economic, and legal realities” (Newell, 2014). According to Jordan and Weedon:

Cultural politics fundamentally determine the meanings of social practices and, moreover, which groups of individuals have the power to redefine these meanings. Cultural politics are also concerned with subjectivity and identity, since culture plays a central role in constituting our sense of ourselves […] Moreover, from marginalized and oppressed groups, the construction of new and resistant identities is a key dimension of a wider political struggle to transform society.

(1995, quoted in Alvarez et al., 1998, p. 20)

In this sense, resistant everyday youth cultures contribute to reform the dominant political culture and, thus, redefine citizenship, community, and the nation, reforming the political (Alvarez et al., 1998) through the cultural. Quotidian youth cultures and practices, then, attempt at eroding dominant narratives and pushing for economic, social, and political reform as they transcend institutional and formal modes and loci of political participation. Youth, therefore, privilege informal venues of engagement (Alhamad, 2008; Singerman, 1997) where political participation takes the form of politicised cultural involvement, as shall be examined further in the next sections.

Youth in Kuwait: dimensions, cultures and challenges

Kuwait is one of the world’s top oil producers and exporters. The local economy is predominantly dependent on hydrocarbons and relies on high oil prices to maintain an extensive welfare system designed for the benefit of the national population. The majority of Kuwaitis are employed in the public sector, which has exponentially grown in response to the socio-demographic changes in the country, and it is driven not so much by productivity as by an intent to redistribute wealth (Kinnimont, 2015). A sense of entitlement has ensued, according to which Kuwaitis, and youth in particular, regard citizenship as a privilege, and consider benefits and subsidies as part of their contract with the nation. A decade of volatile and unstable prices, however, has been shaking the reassuring narratives of a permanent bounty and wealth. As is the case with other Gulf countries, the demographic element, together with economic and financial uncertainties, is proving critical for governments given its potentially destabilising effects.

Youth in Kuwait make up around 72 per cent of the population (UNDP, n.d.). Recently this demographic has been increasingly affected by unemployment, voicing its discontent towards the government’s inability to prolong a sheltered and all-provided-for existence as was the case for the previous generation. Moreover, traditionally young people, as well as the stateless and women, have been kept at the margins of direct involvement in politics and the political arena. These issues mark an increasing distance between the government and the younger generations, which has been exacerbated in the course of the Arab Spring-inspired protests. It is, therefore, no surprise that youth represent a challenge for the government in terms of power preservation and nation-building. In 2012, during the course of the most extensive street mobilisations in Kuwait’s history, the government launched the National Youth Programme and the National Youth Council. Different youth initiatives were promoted under the former to catalyse youth creativity and respond to youth concerns while also creating a bridge with grassroots organisations. One of these initiatives was “Kuwait Listens”, enhanced in 2012–2013,¹ which focused on concerted government efforts to respond to youth socio-economic concerns. A National Youth Document was issued in 2014 with recommendations on unemployment, citizenship, and housing.² In parallel with the Youth Programme, in 2013, the Ministry for Youth Affairs was created³ with a clear vision:

The State of Kuwait regards its young population as an immeasurable treasure, [as] the vanguard of future progress. Because young men and women in Kuwait possess various skills, mental acumen, and physical prowess, they can be relied upon in various fields, especially when they are cared for, when their problems are solved, when their needs are met, and when hurdles that obstruct their growth are lifted.

(Ministry for Youth Affairs, n.d.)

The document, thus, underlines the regime’s approach to take it upon itself to channel and patronise the local youth needs and their expectations in the pursuit of higher national goals of cohesion and stability.

The Ministry for Youth Affairs issued a National Framework for Youth Engagement and Empowerment aiming to “intentionally enhance the capacities, skills, and capabilities of young people through addressing their needs, promoting positive outcomes, and providing integrated coordinated, targeted, and measurable initiatives necessary for holistic development of all young people” by engaging with “youth that are proud of their nation’s authentic values, creators, initiators, and partners in the sustainable development of the nation” (UNDP, n.d.). The Ministry for Youth Affairs website clarifies that the target of the institution is “a generation of creative young people who are committed to national values and who are ready and willing to become co-partners in the nation’s plans for sustainable development”⁴ through the respect of Islamic values and loyalty to the Emir (Ministry of State for Youth Affairs, n.d.).

The Youth Programme, which was promoted by the Council of Ministers as a temporary, one-off consultative initiative, now forms part of the New State Vision “Kuwait 2035”, a national strategic plan envisioning Kuwait as a future financial, commercial, and services hub aimed at recuperating prominence and leadership⁵ among Gulf countries, and attracting investments while reassessing the primary role of national identity and Islamic values. The Sixth Strategic Objective of the New State Vision “Kuwait 2035”, dedicated to “Humane Society and Good Governance” envisions, among its strategies, the need to “attend to youth behaviour problems”.

It remains unclear whether the National Youth Council will continue to operate in a semi-institutional capacity. However, the National Youth Programme and its satellite initiatives appear as institutional attempts directed at channelling the widespread youth discontent towards government-controlled initiatives, aimed at curbing unrest and manifestations⁶ and demobilising youth by partially responding to socio-economic requests while strengthening the local national identity and Islamic values. The relationship between the state and its citizens is, thus, further reconfigured in its nationalistic, authoritarian and patrimonial nature exemplified by a direct association between public spending and political mobilisation (Kinnimont, 2015).

Youth activism in Kuwait

Kuwait is regarded as the most open and permissive country in the Gulf peninsula, with a crucial role played by the National Assembly encouraging limited political and social debate, and with the government promoting associations and civil society organisations through state-sponsored programmes. Historically, the flourishing of local charities and organisations has been encouraged for nation-building and power consolidation purposes, whereby the government promoted groups expressing different orientations in order to balance and counterbalance opposing forces. With time, independent civil society organisations⁷ proliferated and began cooperating to juxtapose government-sponsored initiatives and religiously inspired formations (Buscemi, 2020).

When the Iraqi invasion disrupted Kuwait’s historical path of peaceful development and rapid economic gro...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Gulf youth cultures in the everyday
• Part 1 Spaces of engagement and contestation
• Part 2 Traditions and innovations
• Part 3 Sociabilities and identities
• Part 4 Practices of inclusion in education
• Index