The world city aspirations and spectacular urbanization of Gulf cities such as Abu Dhabi rest on the combination of petrodollars, connections and labour. Drawing on interviews with South Asian men working there, this article reports their lives and labour as a mirror to the development of Abu Dhabi. This requires and invites an investigation of spaces of social reproduction, raising broader theoretical and comparative issues about these in the context of Gulf cities and other sites of rapid urbanization and migration. Transnational categories and connections are thereby opened up in ways that have implications for the study of other cities.
Résumé
Les aspirations à devenir ville mondiale et la spectaculaire urbanisation des grandes villes du Golfe, comme Abou Dhabi, s'appuient sur les atouts combinés que sont les pétrodollars, les capacités de connexion et la main‐d'œuvre. À partir d'entretiens auprès de travailleurs venus d'Asie du Sud, cet article relate leur vie et leur travail en les rapprochant du développement d'Abou Dhabi. Cette démarche exige et suggère une étude des espaces de reproduction sociale, soulevant à leur propos des problèmes théoriques et comparatifs plus vastes, dans le cadre des villes du Golfe ou d'autres lieux d'urbanisation et de migration accélérées. Il en résulte des connexions et des catégories transnationales dont l'étude d'autres villes doit tenir compte.
In this commentary, we argue for the relevance and importance of postcolonial theory to the study of migration and mobility. Building on a panel discussion at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, we highlight a number of different ways in which this could take place. We suggest three possible interventions: stretching the boundaries of the spaces of the postcolonial; interrogating the spatial connections that are forged between disparate places through migration; and challenging singular or hierarchical notions of identity and/or place. In these ways, we conclude that postcolonial theory can complicate and enhance our understanding of migration, and that attention to migration research could, in turn, facilitate a 'social turn' for postcolonial geographies.
This paper draws on a case study of youthful British Pakistani Muslim women located in one of the largest Pakistani Muslim communities in the UK, in the city of Birmingham, to examine their narratives of urban space. These narratives illuminate the performance of gendered, Muslim, public spatialities, a term I use to refer to the spatial practices and personal geographies of the body and territory. I explore the ways in which the everyday life world that cuts across South Asian Muslim society and a public realm encoded with secular liberal democratic values configures the spatial ranges, practices, and personal geographies of youthful Pakistani Muslim women. I identify the ideological, material, and affective modalities through which these are given form at the intersection of place, 'race', gender, and religion. Finally, I illustrate the ways in which the dynamic multiethnic, multicultural milieu of Birmingham's 'Little Pakistan' localities offer youthful Pakistani Muslim women alternative repertoires for remaking the self, promoting cultural change and a greater sense of inclusiveness and belonging In doing so I foreground the fluidity and dynamic character of British South Asian Muslim cultures, contesting their representations as fixed and bounded
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