Dubai and other major cities in the Gulf region are widely known for their economic and social inequalities. Academic and media accounts have often contrasted the luxuries of the sheikhs with the poor conditions of construction workers. The focus has therefore been on Arab local elites and Asian migrants. Interestingly, despite the long historical presence of Britain as an imperial power, privileged Westerners seldom appear in accounts of Gulf societies. Described as expatriates, guests, or tourists, they are commonly seen – even by themselves – as external to the social order. Yet, whether as managers of companies or as employers of maids, Europeans and North Americans have also contributed to widespread injustice, argues Amélie Le Renard in her book, Western Privilege.
The fortunate Westerners are a “group with vague, ill-defined borders” (p. 69), acknowledges Le Renard. Not all people from Europe are among them. One landlord who is quoted in the book refused to rent to Romanian and Russian women, for instance, suspecting them of prostitution. The lucky foreigners in the United Arab Emirates are those with passports of “hegemonic countries” (p. 17). While the author does not provide a comprehensive list of such states, she considers Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States as among them. However, the main Western country in her investigations is France. The sociologist primarily interviewed people from the francophone community and those connected to it. Appropriately then, the book first appeared in French (under the title Le privilège occidental: Travail, intimité et hiérarchies postcoloniales à Dubaï).
French passport holders only make up a tiny fraction of the population of the United Arab Emirates: 25,000 out of 9 million in 2015. However, many of them enjoyed significant structural advantages in the job market. As a legacy of colonialism, they were regularly seen as more skilled and competent than people from the Global South. Their preferential access to visas made it easier for them to arrive in the UAE and to hold jobs that require international travel (such as regional managers). A stereotypical modern Westernness was also part of the ideal image desired by corporations in the global city. French candidates’ relative scarcity compared with the abundance of Indian or Pakistani job seekers, for example, made them further prized in the neoliberal logic. They thus were able to claim higher salaries and advance faster in their careers than those without Western passports. Once in management positions, they not just benefitted, but also perpetuated discrimination in hiring and promotion.
Western privilege not only contributed to a bigger paycheck and greater responsibilities at work, but also shaped unequal arrangements outside the office. Very lucrative expatriate contracts, most often offered to white males, encouraged single-career households: recipients were required to commit themselves fully to their assignment. Their partners, usually wives, often sacrificed their own professional ambitions back in France to follow them to the new country. As they settled into luxurious villas or apartment towers with swimming pools and gyms, trailing spouses also entered a state of bureaucratic and financial dependence. Because their own residency permits were linked to their husbands’ jobs, their new life was precarious. If the primary earner's employment came to an end, so did a couple's right to stay in the UAE. In the meantime, several of Le Renard's interviewees tried to make the best of the situation, availing themselves of services unaffordable back home. This included hiring Filipina nannies for wages significantly below the French minimum. Many younger, single Westerners ultimately aspired to such a stable heteronormative family setting as well, even if after a period of hedonistic excess in Dubai's hotels and night clubs.
While the French expatriates in Le Renard's study espoused an upper-class lifestyle in Dubai, they held on to a Western identity they considered egalitarian. Despite the sharp division of labor within their households, husbands and wives conceived of their relationships as one of equals in contrast to those of local men and women. Seeking to distance themselves from the exploitative practices they associated with Emirati families, some French women framed their small payments to nannies as charity. Many Western passport holders thus not only thought of themselves as more competent professionally, but also as culturally and morally superior.
Even though I have only visited Dubai, Le Renard's findings are plausible and convincing to me. Through my residence in Doha and Riyadh, I can also attest that Western privilege extends to other Gulf cities, although arguably in lesser forms. Highly-paid French and other expatriates have also lived and worked in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere. Nevertheless, as Dubai is home to more headquarters of multinational companies and particularly neoliberal it is policies, the emirate has probably welcomed wealthier and more powerful Western executives than most other places.
The one major element that is missing from Western Privilege are Emirati voices. The author is right in holding citizens of France and other foreign countries accountable for perpetuating racism. Yet, as government officials and business owners, Emiratis are ultimately most responsible for the laws and policies that structure Dubai's job market. Unfortunately, the reader learns little about their views. As with other sociological studies of expatriates, like Neha Vora's book Teach for Arabia,Footnote 1 hardly any Arabic sources are cited. This shortcoming aside, I applaud Le Renard for a rich and thorough investigation of class, gender, nationality, and race. The English translation is beautiful and accessible. Were it not for a few odd word choices (such as calling the ruler of Dubai – in Arabic ḥākim – a “governor”), I could have hardly guessed that the text was originally French.
