“Swiping right on tradition”: An exploration of contemporary Emirati marriage practices

Thesis

Despite the rapid rate of change that has transformed the UAE into a modern nation state, the private lives of Emiratis hold fast to residual and constructed ‘traditional’ patterns. The behaviours, rituals, and idioms surrounding marriage and courtship reflect a society attempting to find its footing in an age of social, political, and economic change. The discovery of oil transformed gender norms within what would become Emirati society, and led to the construction of a new hegemonic conservative narrative that aligned with overarching nation-building rhetoric. Contrary to appearances, interviews for this project have highlighted the precarious nature of the concept of ‘tradition’ in Emirati society and illustrated a fractured habitus in flux. This is most present when discussing arranged marriages and the ways in which people conceptualise their practice. Moreover, the increased integration and normalisation of the mingling of the sexes in public spaces has eroded certain inter-gender boundaries. This wave of change is subtle but pervasive, and has suffused the microcosm of Emirati society online, through social media. Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and Tinder are used by young people to meet romantic partners. These digital connections through what will be termed as ‘spaces of approachability’ which are considered reputationally safe for the most part whilst satisfying a hunger for agentive control, and have incidentally led to a surge of exogamous (inter-ethnic or international) marriages. These marriages are reframing what it means to be an Emirati and testing the limits of citizenship laws and social prejudice. I argue that these seemingly personal and inconsequential choices on a micro scale—both in how young Emiratis are finding partners and the sort of partners they are choosing—are fundamentally altering the definition of what it means to be a ‘good’ Emirati citizen. This project is based on a combination of interviews, participant-observation and auto-ethnographic elements. Research was conducted over the course of 9 months of continuous fieldwork, with scattered interviews after the initial time period. All interviews were completed online in accordance with Covid-19 restrictions at the time. I hope to contribute to the anthropology of personhood, gender, nationalism, and kinship in the Gulf through the ethnographic research conducted for this project.

Authors: Behandy, S

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-ryqze8z7m
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: Arabic and English
• Keywords: gender; UAE; United Arab Emirates; Dubai; kinship; gulf studies; Middle Eastern; ethnography; social media; identity; Arab; anthropology; digital anthropology; marriage; ethnicity; spaces of approachability; Emirati; nationalism; urban anthropology; personhood
• Subjects: Middle East; Islamic marriage customs and rites; Nationalism; Anthropology; History; Gender