View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by UCL Discovery Genes and Djinn: Identity and Anxiety in Southeast Arabia Aaron Lee Parkhurst University College London Department of Anthropology A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2013 1 Declaration ‘ I, Aaron Lee Parkhurst, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis.' 2 Abstract This thesis focuses on the ways in which identity is constructed in the United Arab Emirates in the face of rapid development and immigration. The thesis draws upon ethnographic data collected over three years in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, among other Arabian Gulf communities, to explore how foreign knowledge systems, specifically genetic models of inheritance, are incorporated into indigenous bodies of knowledge to reshape the ways in which local people see themselves in the world. Long held Gulf Arab conceptions of the self and body in relation to nature, spirits and foreigners are challenged by the promises of globalization and modernity. This conflict creates both personal and social anxiety for many local people as they attempt to consolidate desert and Islamic tradition with the ambiguity of new urban and social landscapes, creating a metaphor between Gene and Djinn. This thesis follows this conflict ethnographically through the rapid construction of a new aristocratic class of citizens in the country, and the ways in which some of them imagine their downfall. As people move through the desert, the coast and the rapidly growing cities, their quest for an elusive notion of modernity ricochets into local systems of destiny, cosmology, agency, body practices, and kinship, and the languages one uses to articulate the ‘self’ and world are transformed. 3 Table of Contents List of figures and tables 6 Acknowledgements 7 Chapter 1: Thee and Me 9 Introduction: Al Dhiyafa on December 2nd 10 Muatan, a new aristocracy 20 Methodology: Shifting Ontologies of the Anthropologist 30 Categories and Conversions 39 Arabic Protectionism 42 Strange words from the Westerner 51 Tracing ‘globalization’ 58 Chapter 2: Urban Djinn and the conflicts of modernity 65 A Brief History of Djinn in Anthropology 66 Djinn Possession, Illness Categories, and Culture Bound Syndromes 71 Case Study: Sexual Assault by a Djinn 75 Case study: Djinn and runaway teens 79 Djinn and Sex 81 Firestarters: Smokeless fire begets fire 85 Djinn as articulations of desire 92 The Djinn are confused 99 Conclusion 104 Chapter 3: Deconstructing Islamic Fatalism 109 A Bag Full of Money 109 The Bayesian failure 114 It is useless to pursue the World… 120 Prayer, history, Retroactivity, and Schrödinger 125 Fatalism and Economy 133 Religious Incongruency 137 Genetic Determinism 147 Fate, fortune and the moon on the mosque 151 Chapter 4: Genes as Djinn 159 Genes and their Agency 163 Case study: Genetic Schitzophrenia 167 Case Study: Inside the Nutrition Clinic 169 4 Case Study: Genetic phenotype and body Alterations 171 Heredity, Conception, and Preformative Science in the Gulf 175 Cultural Inheritance and the Kholasat Al Qaid 185 The Arab Genome 188 Genetics as Fatalism and Genetics as Scape-goat 190 Genes as Djinn 201 Conclusion 208 Chapter 5: Wearing white: Bottled Identity 213 Part 1: National Dress 215 The power of clothing 220 National Dress and exclusionist policy 225 Part Two: Whitening Creams and Racism in a Bottle 235 Skin-whitening 235 Whitening beyond racism 240 Kinship, Lamarckism, and Body Alterations 250 Conclusion 255 Chapter 6: The Aristocracy 261 The desert Flâneur 261 Case Study: No One Else in the World 266 The appearance of denial, and the responsibilities of the Muatan 273 On superlatives and identity 276 Global Aristocracies 285 Aristocratic kinship and Consanguinity 293 Arabic and English and the language of the Aristocracy 299 and the desert’s wealth 304 (ن فط) Oil Conclusion 310 Conclusion: Agents of the City and the City as an agent 314 Bibliography 321 Appendix - Stigmatisation Questionnaire 344 English Version 345 Arabic Version 349 5 List of Figures and Tables: Figure 1: Rubaiyat XXXII. Omar Khayyam. Artist: René Bull 9 Figure 2: English and Arabic Numerals 54 Figure 3: Locals crowd a Satwa mosque on Friday during midday prayers. 96 Figure 4: Isomers of Benzene 103 Figure 5: Benzene with resonating double bonds 103 Figure 6 : Hartsoeker's drawings of 'homunculi', or 'little humans' inside sperm. 175 Figure 7: Wijnand Van Till winning entry in the landscape category of the photo competition in the National Geographic’s Netherlands edition. 194 Figure 8: Local adverts for skin whitening products for men. 255 Figure 9: Promotional Master Plan of the Dubai Coast Line 266 A note on names: The names of all people, places, and organizations below the governmental and administrative level have been altered or omitted to protect the anonymity of those who participated in this ethnography. 6 Acknowledgements Over the years I lived in the Arabian Gulf, I was privileged to meet so many people whom I am deeply grateful for their company and assistance. I thank the staff at Sheikh Khalifa Medical Centre in Abu Dhabi, the clinical staff at Health Care City in Dubai, the staff at the Lime Tree Café, and, of course, all of the people of the Emirates who gave me their time, energy, and friendship. Many thanks go to Reem and Joumana for instructing me in Arabic, and to Lorna, Vishakha, Luke and Steve for joining me along the way, and especially to Matt T. for every Tuesday night spent at the only stand- alone pub in Dubai. I also thank Iain and Lou, the best friends a man could ask for, who helped make four years in the desert seem all too short a time. I am immensely grateful to Roland Littlewood whose guidance and insight has been invaluable over the years, whose work inspired me to study anthropology, and for every coffee he has ever shared with me on the patio of the Fitzrovia, and to Simon Dein, whose humour, friendship and critique helped shape the chapters of this thesis. It has been one of the greatest privileges in my life to spend these past few years with UCL anthropology, and I thank the academic staff for every moment. I especially thank David Napier, Joe Calabrese, Sahra Gibbon, Alex Pillen, Charles Stewart, Allan Abramson, Martin Holbraad and Suzanne Kuechler for their support over the years in all my endeavours. My appreciation extends as well to the admin staff of the department for all their help. 7 It has been one of my greatest pleasures to work with my fellow students in the department. Their research is a constant reminder of the vivid and beautiful complexity of culture, and I thank them for sharing their experiences and challenging my own. I am especially grateful to Alison MacDonald, Timothy Carroll, Galina Oustinova- Stjepanovic, Alice Elliott, Matan Shapiro, Matthew Thomas, Bram Van Leeuwan for every comment, critique and discussion of my work. I thank also the members of the Medical Anthropology and Biosociality research groups, the ‘Deleuzionals’, the ‘Chaotics’, the CROC Research group, and all the regular attendees at the medical anthropology seminar series whose long discussions have shaped the way I understand the world. Finally, I thank my parents, Tom and Sherrill, and my brothers Drew and Avery, for being an unending source of love and confidence in a large, chaotic and often confusing world. I thank also Jim and Marie Davidson for their support and encouragement over the years. My deepest gratitude and love goes to my wife, Annie, who has travelled with me to many corners of the Earth, and whose presence and strength could make even the most barren desert landscape feel like home, and to my daughter Tesla, who fills my life with joy, and who is a beacon of light whenever the mind needs direction. 8 Chapter 1 Thee and Me There was a Door to which I found no Key: There was a Veil past which I could not see: Some little Talk awhile of ME and THEE There seemed---and then no more of THEE and ME.1 1 Figure 1: Rubaiyat XXXII. Omar Khayyam. Artist: René Bull. Work: Illustrations for The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, 1913. Medium: Watercolor and pen and ink XXXII 9 Introduction Al Dhiyafa on December 2nd It only rains a few days every year in Dubai. My first year in the city I counted five days of rain. If there were more, I missed them, drizzling in the middle of the night, or seconds of precipitation across patches of the city, enough to leave stains of water droplets on pavement or smoothed-over sand, evaporating in seconds. Dubai’s wonderful thoroughfares, the Sheikh Zayed, Al Dhiyafa and Jumeirah Roads are nonetheless lined with green landscaping: long carpets of grass, flowers, and date trees. It does not matter that it rains so seldom, the government waters the public lawns three or four times daily, without which the plants would die within hours, consumed by the oppressive sun. Emirati men say “Cities need to have some green, it is worth using the water”. Many environmentalists disagree, but I admit that I found the landscaping to be a powerful aesthetic. In areas of the city where green is scarce, Al Qouz and its neighbourhoods to the south where migrant camps house South Asian labour, the unforgiving force of the desert re-enters the imagination. On Sheikh Zayed, desert flowers, grass and plants are shaped into long calligraphy and Arab mosaic patterns that separate service streets from a 14 lane highway.