Introduction : Dubai Contexts and Contestations -- State, Citizen, and Foreigner in Dubai -- "Going South" with the Starchitects : Urbanist Ideology in the Emirati City -- The Vanished Village : Nostalgic and Nationalist Critiques of the New Dubai -- The City-Corporation : Young Professionals and the Limits of the Neoliberal Response -- Indian Ocean Dubai : The Identity Politics of South Asian Immigrants -- Conclusion : Politicizing Dubai Space
Summary
Somewhere in the course of the late twentieth century, Dubai became more than itself. The city was, suddenly, a postmodern urban spectacle rising from the desert--precisely the glittering global consumer utopia imagined by Dubai's rulers and merchant elite. In "Dubai, the City as Corporation," Ahmed Kanna looks behind this seductive vision to reveal the role of cultural and political forces in shaping both the image and the reality of Dubai. Exposing local struggles over power and meaning in the making and representation of Dubai, Kanna examines the core questions of what gets built
