Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Issue 1 | Page 70

an online platform. Although the UAE is one of the most Internet enabled
and digitally connected countries in the Gulf and the Middle East region,
access to online spaces and technologies remains unequal across social strata
and along the familiar uneven socio-economic conditions of the population.
Vora (����:���–���) argues that Internet access, for individual users, depends
on where one lives in the UAE: “Expatriate neighbourhoods (usually in
newer apartment buildings) in city centres are more wired, meaning that
many middle- and upper-class foreign residents have Internet access at
home”. Parenthetically and as Vora goes on to explain, although the category
of “expatriate” implies the foreign population of a country, in the case of the
UAE the term carries classed and raced connotations that privilege Western
and white people. As for the scores of South Asian “migrants”, they are
often the subject of governmental as well as privatized efforts to “clean up”
neighbourhoods and the cities’ shopping malls (Vora ����:���, ���) (Figures
� and �).
As such, expatriates tend to experience a level of inclusion, belonging
and access that is not afforded to migrant workers whose socio-economic
situations may inhibit their ownership of or access to communication and
Internet technologies, thereby limiting their ability to participate in online
and digitally mediated civic activities. After all and as Astra Taylor (����)
reminds us, the Internet often reflects real-world inequalities.
Issues of belonging and citizenship are what Al Naiar’s contribution to
Autopoiesis, UAE Autopsy (����), directly focuses on. This raw and roughly
edited documentary video features a series of interviews with migrant
workers (mainly South Asian shopkeepers) and a local citizen, asking
politically charged questions about citizenship, rights, belonging and
inclusion in the context of the UAE. The documentary maker, who is a UAEborn
non-citizen, seeks to address the problematic nature of citizenry issues
and civic participation in the country, and include the faces and opinions
of those who are largely excluded from the dominant narrative and official
cultural spaces (Figure �). �
Contributions to Autopoiesis by migrant laborers themselves were, nonetheless,
few as the project initially faced the challenge of outreach, especially that
most of its work and activities have been conducted virtually. The fact that
the project curator is not physically based in the UAE and mostly reliant on
virtual and online networks for publicity and outreach limits the extent to
�.
See http://www.autopoiesis.io/submissions/�������/.
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