White Expatriates, Racialized Schemas, and Social Inquality in Abu Dhabi, UAE

Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork and 73 interviews, this paper seeks to understand whether and to what extent the attitudes and orientations of Western White “expatriates” towards lower-status Brown and Black “migrant workers” contribute to the maintenance and/or mitigation of social inequality present in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Previous research on lower-status migrant workers in Gulf countries has rightly focused on either the legal structures that constrain both low-status workers and White expatriates and/or the specific treatment practices of the former by the latter in everyday life and employment relations. The present study takes a more cultural and cognitive approach, employing a close analysis of “racialized schemas” present in the thinking of Western White expatriates towards lower-status Black and Brown workers to understand the potentially consequential ways that privileged residents conceptualize of lower-status and non-white “others” in the first place. My analysis reveals the presence of a range of “racialized schemas” among White expatriates, notably including: a relatively infrequent egalitarian schema, in which non-White, lower-status others are conceptualized as fundamentally equal and deserving of equitable treatment, as well as a more frequently appearing neocolonial schema, in which non-White, lower-status others are conceptualized as fundamentally inferior and therefore deserving of restrictive and neglectful treatment. Further analysis reveals a correlation of United Kingdom origins and being male with the “neocolonial schema,” as well as a correlation between the “egalitarian schema” and North American origins, being female, and having experience with grassroots civic action. While the political and social structure of Abu Dhabi as well as the treatment practices of Western White expats towards non-White workers play a key role in maintaining inequality, the underlying ways of thinking about non-White others present among the privileged White population also provides a deep and often overlooked legitimizing cultural foundation to the social status quo.