The aim of this blog is to offer a first impression on the role of digital culture as a crowd-sourcing tool to improve social and political engagement in Dubai’s superdiverse environment. Of particular interest are the brief references to gender online participation and the role of architecture in engaging youth with questions of political governance.

 

Dubai ‘as the locus of superdiversity’

 'I wish all of us a happy flight.' As I read the words of author and professor Odile Heynders I stare at my window and I hear the constant sound in the clouds as planes move around Dubai International Airport (DXB). The same sound interferes five times a day with the most important Islamic sound, the adhan (call to worship). I see lives departing and arriving or, re-using the words of Joseph Conrad (1902, p.9) I see the sky entering into the life of people, people ‘in the way to pleasure, travel or work’. Today, in the midst of Eid Adha (one of the most important Islamic feast that is commemorated by the slaughter of an animal as reminder of Ibrahim’s gesture to sacrifice is own son) official sources estimate that more than a quarter of a million people will be crossing the marbled floors of DXB. People of different citizenships carrying diverse cultural baggage and whose personal motivations bring them together in the same transnational space.

Dubai’s superdiverse environment is according to Daniel Brook (2013), author of 'A History of future cities’, a product of DXB’s global importance as a travelling hub between Europe and Asia. In fact, the city’s constant need of labor force (innumerous construction sites, hotel developments, to name a few of the contracting industries), its geographical accessibility (direct flights from several parts of the world), the constant mobility of people around town (both residents and tourists), and the presence of a high degree of ethnic diversity population in contrast to the national minority (Emirati citizens are an estimate 10% of the country’s population) are all factors that make Dubai 'the urban metropolis as the locus of superdiversity' (Maly, 2016, p.703). 

 

The social urban landscape is affected as well by different social customs, political experiences and government models that are brought along by the migrant population. Therefore, Dubai offers an extraordinary ethnographic fieldwork site to better study the concept of superdiversity (Blommaert, 2013; Rampton& Arnaut & Spotti, 2014). Superdiversity refers to the social, political, cultural, legal and economic changes brought by the interplay of global migration and minorities on a specific location. Both the human and the physical landscape in Dubai shift as fast and steadily as the sands underneath us. The fieldwork notes of any sharp social scientist will rise to new heights in a short period of time taking in account the amount and quality of available data both offline and online. After all, and as Dubai's Crown Prince, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum said: ’in the fabric of Dubai there are more than 2.1 million stories.’ 

Italian cornetti, remote dialects, the scent of oud (or ‘oudh’ in Arabic) that the dishdasha leaves behind entangled with Sri Lankan spices are some of the cultural artefacts we may encounter during a morning stroll in downtown Dubai, or just by browsing through digital contents with Dubai’s geotag.

 

#mydubai – Gender engagement in a super-diverse environment

#mydubai is a social digital initiative presented in January of 2014 that collects, selects and posts Instagram contents from residents (an interesting category in opposition to nationals, citizens or even migrants) and visitors with this hashtag (#mydubai) and that will later deliver digital and media by-products such as a digital museum. It is a collective artistic manifestation of the most democratic nature as all individuals are welcome to participate, to become content producers themselves. It includes, for example, the participation of women in social media platforms. In fact, their strong presence on digital platforms in the position of producers and/or consumers has 'enlarged the sphere of public discourse' (Devriese, 2016, p. 72) to otherwise neglected gender issues and it has simultaneously shed light upon their substantial and diversified achievements in areas that range from education, to business or Armed Forces. 

On the political engagement perspective, female participation and engagement is reflected in the increasing number of women who have a distinct function in the country’s administration. Women’s involvement in the UAE ‘nation-building efforts’ (Schedreck, 2016, p. 64) is determinant, appreciated and hyperlinked in the official discourses as well as in the media and digital spaces. Hence, gender analysis, namely gender empowerment in superdiverse environments should be the subject of further social digital studies. 

 

Millennials generation and architectural innovation

Keeping my 'eye in the sky' (Heynders,2016) I see the shadow silhouettes of the aerial architectural landscape, also cultural examples of innovation and superdiversity. Different architects from different nationalities have been commissioned to edit Dubai’s horizon and transform it into an iconic and one of the kind space. The city's multiple and high buildings are actually a form of social engagement with its residents and visitors and consequently these buildings are at the heart of the abundant online imagery and correspondent hashtags of social media platforms, #tallestskyscraper, #burjalkhalifa, #igersdubai, #mydubai.

Authenticity in the sphere of digital culture is another important level of the study of super-diverse environments. To the designers of a #mydubai account it is an important feature because ‘it is a portrait that is meant to be believable' and that aims at highlighting 'the real life dynamics of Dubai'. In any other part of the world, the use of the words real and believable to describe digital contents would be perceived as an oxymoron considering the abundance of editing apps that saturate any visual truth into fiction. However, both in Dubai and on #mydubai, spaces it is at times difficult to distinguish a mirage from a true image as the reflections of the glassed towers seem optical illusions in both worlds. Fiction is here understood as freedom of imagination, freedom to transform architectural fiction into a blueprint truth. A truth that once it is erected and tangible seems then unreal, almost fiction. 

Dubai’s architecture represents human nature’s power of creativity and construction. In this point the tech-savvy Emirati government by collectively constructing a social digital truth that is firmly based in self-empowerment, self-positively branding and social online engagement hits the hype of the millennials generation (individuals born around 1980) who in contrast with the previous generation are ‘more achieving, more upbeat and more civic’ (Howe&Strauss, 2009, p.13), all features that are displayed and promoted by #mydubai account hence guaranteeing youth's massive participation. 

Digital political engagement

The user-generated content participation of #mydubai finds echo in another important Emirati Instagram account, the Instagram account of the above mentioned Dubai’s Crown Prince, whose digital profile was recently featured in an article by Qantara magazine (2016). The article illustrated well how the Crown Prince, ‘Fazza’ (his Instagram username) leads through a social digital example of political and religious responsibility. The account depicts his life as a young Arabic Muslim man who enjoys a ride with his father in London’s underground public transportation as much as he enjoys writing poetry in the traditional Bedouin linguistic style.

As a result, the Crown’s Prince accounts finds an interesting balance between tradition and modernity and it has earned him 3,5 million followers on Instagram making him an important digital culture influencer.

Likewise, the Crown’s Prince father, Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum has developed an important digital role on Twitter where he has 6,25 million followers and with whom he engages in public discussions with the hastag: #ShkMohdJournal. The main idea is to address the ruler by means of this digital crowdsourcing tool and pose questions and/or suggestions on matters concerning the region. The digital discussion reunites technology, trust and public participation as expressed in a publication entitled, ‘From Majils to Hastags’ (Salem, 2014, p.14), that is to say the aim is to evolve from traditional forms of consultation and deliberation such as the ‘Majils’ and to create ‘citizen-centric public services’ by means of social media.

 

 

 

Conclusion

Inclusion, debate, youth, political participation, discursive Islamic tradition, superdiversity are repeated categories throughout Dubai's digital social experience. Even if we may point out here the limitation that these are 'top-down' digital public processes, still we can infer that these examples of 'published spaces' (Jensen, 2014, p. 228) confer on the participants a feeling of identity and citizenship. The interplay of these arguments challenges not only the processes of governance and civil society in a super-diverse environment but also the social analysis models of superdiversity.

I hear the muezzin calling for the ‘Maghrib’ prayer and the roar of another happy flight aiming at the clouds, both ‘five times more distant, five times more blue’ (Da Vinci, p.296) both voices of tradition and technology, both with their ‘eyes on the sky’ in search for an optimistic yet super-diverse perspective of the future.

  

References

Arnaut, K.; Blommaert, J.; Rampton, B.; Spotti, M. (Eds.), (2016). 'Language and superdiversity'. New York: Routledge, .

Blommaert, J. (2013). 'Ethnography, Superdiversity and Linguistic Landscapes: Chronicles of Complexity.' Bristol: Multilingual Matters,

Brook, D. (2013). 'A history of future cities.' New York: W. W. Norton.

Conrad, J. (1902). 'Youth, a narrative, and two other stories.' Edinburgh: W. Blackwood and Sons, 1902.

da Vinci, L. (2004). ‘The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci’,  Project Gutenberg Ebook.

de Vriese, L. (2016). ‘Genie out of the Bottle: Social Media and the Expansion of the Public Sphere in the Arab Gulf,’ NIDABA, Vol 1, No 1, Lund University, pp. 72-82.

Dudin, M. (2016). ‘Dubai′s fairytale prince’: Qantara.

Heynders, O. (2009). 'Voices of Europe. Literary writers as public intellectuals.’ Tilburg University.

Heynders, O. (2016). ‘Putting two things together in a transforming public space.' Diggit magazine.

Howe, N.; Strauss, B., (2000). 'Millennials rising: the next great generation,' New York : Vintage Books.

Jensen, B. (2014). ‘Hyperarabia’: Arab Contemporary Architecture & Identity.' Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.

Maly, I. (2016) ‘Detecting social changes in times of Superdiversity: An Ethnographic Linguistic Landscape Analysis of Ostend in Belgium.’ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 42 Issue 5, April 2016, pp. 703-723.

Salem, F. (2014). ‘From Majils to Hastags, The UAE National Brainstorming Session - Engaging Citizens Through Social Media’: Dubai School of Government.

Schedneck, J. (2016). ‘"We’re Normal. We’re Just Like You": Gendered Practices of Cultural Exchange and Translation in Dubai’, NIDABA, Vol 1, No 1, Lund University, pp. 60-71.