Western Privilege

Work, Intimacy, and Postcolonial Hierarchies in Dubai

Amélie Le Renard, Jane Kuntz

• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781503629233, 9781503613843
• eBook ISBN: 9781503629240
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Storia mediorientale

Nearly 90 percent of residents in Dubai are foreigners with no Emirati nationality. As in many global cities, those who hold Western passports share specific advantages: prestigious careers, high salaries, and comfortable homes and lifestyles. With this book, Amélie Le Renard explores how race, gender and class backgrounds shape experiences of privilege, and investigates the processes that lead to the formation of Westerners as a social group.

Westernness is more than a passport; it is also an identity that requires emotional and bodily labor. And as they work, hook up, parent, and hire domestic help, Westerners chase Dubai's promise of socioeconomic elevation for the few. Through an ethnography informed by postcolonial and feminist theory, Le Renard reveals the diverse experiences and trajectories of white and non-white, male and female Westerners to understand the shifting and contingent nature of Westernness—and also its deep connection to whiteness and heteronormativity. Western Privilege offers a singular look at the lived reality of structural racism in cities of the global South.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Series Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. The Construction of Skills
• 2. Structural Advantages in the Job Market
• 3. Performing Stereotypical Westernness
• 4. The Heteronormativity of “Guest Families”
• 5. Relations with Domestic Employees
• 6. Hedonistic Lifestyles
• 7. Western Privilege and White Privilege
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Series List