EDUCATED ACQUIESCENCE: AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN POST-ARAB SPRING UAE

By: Mira Al Hussein

Key Words: Gulf States; Arabian Peninsula; MENA; Islam; International Higher Education; Diaspora

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About My Project: 

In many parts of the world, higher education is entangled in geopolitical processes that have, in the Middle East and North Africa region, come into sharp focus particularly in the post-Arab Spring period. The hyper-securitisation of society resulted in what I describe as a governmentality of self-preservation exercised by the state, the citizens and noncitizens, which manifests in the rehearsal of peculiar dynamics within spaces of higher learning. Thus, institutions of higher learning become spaces for the reproduction and reinscription of existing power relations, and the perpetuation of social hierarchies and exclusions.

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About Me: 

Mira Al Hussein is a sociologist of education, whose work is focused on the Arab states of the Gulf, with an eye on the wider MENA region. Her current research is centred on the topic of mobilisation, mobilities and migration in the Gulf, including the little known area on Khaleeji émigrés in the West.