have investigated the relation between undocumented activism and the city. Swerts's study in particular illustrates how undocumented migrants rely on urban space for their struggles over citizenship (Swerts 2017). Sanctuary cities are key as they produce safe spaces where performing acts of protest (against exclusion from the national) and acts of appropriation (of and through urban space) can be deployed in a relatively open way. They are trustworthy spaces where the in-betweenness of migrants can be best observed and understood.

Let us consider the 1.5 generation in the US – a term that refers to foreign-born immigrant youths who came to the US with their parents as children. Though they were raised and educated in the US, they are subjected on a daily basis, along with other non-status migrants, to vulnerability and fear of deportation. As such, they illustrate the ultimate case of in-betweenness.

The absence of formal status makes them “illegal” under the law and at risk of deportation in the same way as the overall unauthorized population of the US. At the same time, because of their education and long-time US residence, they constitute a specific category of immigrants. In the last 10–15 years, scholars have growingly studied this estimated population of about 800,000 youths nationwide, focusing on the existing contradiction between their education, which the law authorizes, and their transition to adulthood when they become aware of the impossibility to be formally included in US society because they cannot be further educated or work legally (Gonzales 2016; Nicholls 2013).<fnref n="7" />

Conferring legal status on undocumented migrant youth brought to the U.S. as children – a group referred to as DREAMers – has been the subject of legislation in the US Congress since 2001 but has failed to reach a consensus. In 2012 the Obama administration launched the *Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals* initiative (DACA) to provide temporary relief from deportation and work authorizations to those who qualified under the program, with the following requirements: having been in the US since 2007, being under the age of 16 at the time of arrival and under the age of 31 as of 2012; they also had to be enrolled in school and have a high school diploma or equivalent.<fnref n="8" />

The initiative has embroiled all three branches of US government since its creation, with each branch hoping the other would bail it out of a politically sensitive issue like how to address the fate of a population widely seen as sympathetic across the partisan divide. DACA was in effect until September 2017, when the Trump administration announced its intention to terminate the program and end work authorization and protection from deportation for DACA recipients. Since then, several federal courts have blocked the administration, somehow keeping the program alive for people who currently have or have held DACA status without being

<footnote n="7">⁷They have the right to be schooled from kindergarten through grade 12, the last year of high school. This right was enacted by the Supreme Court ruling *Plyler v. Doe* 457 U.S. 202 (1982).</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸This was undertaken through an executive action: presidents can legally take such decisions but they rarely do so as in the US, immigration policy is typically the responsibility of Congress. Barack Obama took this action in the absence of congressional action.</footnote>
have investigated the relation between undocumented activism and the city. Swerts's study in particular illustrates how undocumented migrants rely on urban space for their struggles over citizenship (Swerts 2017). Sanctuary cities are key as they produce safe spaces where performing acts of protest (against exclusion from the national) and acts of appropriation (of and through urban space) can be deployed in a relatively open way. They are trustworthy spaces where the in-betweenness of migrants can be best observed and understood.

Let us consider the 1.5 generation in the US – a term that refers to foreign-born immigrant youths who came to the US with their parents as children. Though they were raised and educated in the US, they are subjected on a daily basis, along with other non-status migrants, to vulnerability and fear of deportation. As such, they illustrate the ultimate case of in-betweenness.

The absence of formal status makes them “illegal” under the law and at risk of deportation in the same way as the overall unauthorized population of the US. At the same time, because of their education and long-time US residence, they constitute a specific category of immigrants. In the last 10–15 years, scholars have growingly studied this estimated population of about 800,000 youths nationwide, focusing on the existing contradiction between their education, which the law authorizes, and their transition to adulthood when they become aware of the impossibility to be formally included in US society because they cannot be further educated or work legally (Gonzales 2016; Nicholls 2013).<fnref n="7" />

Conferring legal status on undocumented migrant youth brought to the U.S. as children – a group referred to as DREAMers – has been the subject of legislation in the US Congress since 2001 but has failed to reach a consensus. In 2012 the Obama administration launched the *Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals* initiative (DACA) to provide temporary relief from deportation and work authorizations to those who qualified under the program, with the following requirements: having been in the US since 2007, being under the age of 16 at the time of arrival and under the age of 31 as of 2012; they also had to be enrolled in school and have a high school diploma or equivalent.<fnref n="8" />

The initiative has embroiled all three branches of US government since its creation, with each branch hoping the other would bail it out of a politically sensitive issue like how to address the fate of a population widely seen as sympathetic across the partisan divide. DACA was in effect until September 2017, when the Trump administration announced its intention to terminate the program and end work authorization and protection from deportation for DACA recipients. Since then, several federal courts have blocked the administration, somehow keeping the program alive for people who currently have or have held DACA status without being

<footnote n="7">⁷They have the right to be schooled from kindergarten through grade 12, the last year of high school. This right was enacted by the Supreme Court ruling *Plyler v. Doe* 457 U.S. 202 (1982).</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸This was undertaken through an executive action: presidents can legally take such decisions but they rarely do so as in the US, immigration policy is typically the responsibility of Congress. Barack Obama took this action in the absence of congressional action.</footnote>
effective in completely preventing deportations orders. This is where the situation stands at the time of writing this essay.

President Trump has threatened to strip federal funding from sanctuary jurisdictions if they do not share citizenship or immigration status information with the federal government. Some cities capitulate; others, significantly, resist and challenge the federal action in court. The city (and county) of San Francisco did just that: they sued the federal government and won the case. The US Circuit Court of Appeals struck down president Trump's executive order of 2017 to end federal grant funding to sanctuary cities.<fnref n="9" /> The lawsuit challenged the order on the claims that it was unconstitutional because only Congress can impose conditions for federal grant appropriations.<fnref n="10" /> The *San Francisco v. Trump* injunction was a notable victory for cities (Kwon and Roy 2018). This lawsuit is one of many against the Trump administration concerning executive orders against sanctuaries. Interestingly, so far courts have ruled in favor of cities.

Not only have cities renewed their commitment to sanctuary in response to the measures outlined in Trump's executive action but, as a sign of protest against his antagonism and anti-immigrant rhetoric, they tend to make more explicit statements about the safe spaces they provide for the vulnerable, be they refugees or non-status migrants.

DREAMers have used those safe spaces to engage in migrant activism as the DACA program results largely from their struggles. Not all of it occurs in cities, and the rebirth of sanctuaries since the presidential election has been observed in churches, campuses, counties, and even at state level. But undocumented activism has been decisive in cities, particularly in sanctuary cities where migrant youth have been able to deploy their actions in an environment that is not hostile. Starting in 2010, they learned how to identify public arenas (online and on campuses, for instance) where they could build their cases and express their claims, “plan and undertake high risk protests, and lobby public officials to support bills recognizing their rights and the rights of other undocumented immigrants in the country” (Nicholls 2013, 8).

Under the principle of Separation of Powers and in consideration of the Spending Clause, which vests exclusive power to Congress to impose conditions on federal grants, the Executive Branch may not refuse to disperse federal grants to sanctuary cities and counties without congressional authorization. President Trump issued Executive Order 13,768 (Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States”) with the purpose of directing executive departments and agencies to employ all lawful means to enforce immigration laws. The Executive Order’s primary concern was sanctuary jurisdictions, which the President viewed as willfully violating Federal law in an attempt to shield aliens from removal from the country. (2 August 2018, at JURIST, http://jurist.org)

<footnote n="9">⁹Executive Order 13768 (25 January 2017) is entitled “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the US.”</footnote>

<footnote n="10">¹⁰The opinion summary of court decision N17-17478 (2018):</footnote>
effective in completely preventing deportations orders. This is where the situation stands at the time of writing this essay.

President Trump has threatened to strip federal funding from sanctuary jurisdictions if they do not share citizenship or immigration status information with the federal government. Some cities capitulate; others, significantly, resist and challenge the federal action in court. The city (and county) of San Francisco did just that: they sued the federal government and won the case. The US Circuit Court of Appeals struck down president Trump's executive order of 2017 to end federal grant funding to sanctuary cities.<fnref n="9" /> The lawsuit challenged the order on the claims that it was unconstitutional because only Congress can impose conditions for federal grant appropriations.<fnref n="10" /> The *San Francisco v. Trump* injunction was a notable victory for cities (Kwon and Roy 2018). This lawsuit is one of many against the Trump administration concerning executive orders against sanctuaries. Interestingly, so far courts have ruled in favor of cities.

Not only have cities renewed their commitment to sanctuary in response to the measures outlined in Trump's executive action but, as a sign of protest against his antagonism and anti-immigrant rhetoric, they tend to make more explicit statements about the safe spaces they provide for the vulnerable, be they refugees or non-status migrants.

DREAMers have used those safe spaces to engage in migrant activism as the DACA program results largely from their struggles. Not all of it occurs in cities, and the rebirth of sanctuaries since the presidential election has been observed in churches, campuses, counties, and even at state level. But undocumented activism has been decisive in cities, particularly in sanctuary cities where migrant youth have been able to deploy their actions in an environment that is not hostile. Starting in 2010, they learned how to identify public arenas (online and on campuses, for instance) where they could build their cases and express their claims, “plan and undertake high risk protests, and lobby public officials to support bills recognizing their rights and the rights of other undocumented immigrants in the country” (Nicholls 2013, 8).

Under the principle of Separation of Powers and in consideration of the Spending Clause, which vests exclusive power to Congress to impose conditions on federal grants, the Executive Branch may not refuse to disperse federal grants to sanctuary cities and counties without congressional authorization. President Trump issued Executive Order 13,768 (Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States”) with the purpose of directing executive departments and agencies to employ all lawful means to enforce immigration laws. The Executive Order’s primary concern was sanctuary jurisdictions, which the President viewed as willfully violating Federal law in an attempt to shield aliens from removal from the country. (2 August 2018, at JURIST, http://jurist.org)

<footnote n="9">⁹Executive Order 13768 (25 January 2017) is entitled “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the US.”</footnote>

<footnote n="10">¹⁰The opinion summary of court decision N17-17478 (2018):</footnote>
This advocacy emerged from a loose network of undocumented students who chose to use their personal stories to attract attention. The DREAMer narrative relied on the figure of the undocumented youth portrayed as an integrated person (who grew up in the US, speaks fluent English and feels American), innocent (brought to the country as a child) and hard-working as much as successful – hence, the very embodiment of a “deserving” student. Their strategy was frequently criticized for its exclusionary effects in the first years of the movement as it implied that other immigrants were not as deserving as they were.<fnref n="11" /> The movement started to fracture as students stopped using arguments. Irreconcilable tensions became salient with the intersectionality of those who wanted to include gender and racial identities in their stories and the refusal of others to blame their parents for bringing them to the US. Nonetheless, the movement was successful in positioning the personal stories of undocumented childhood arrivals in order to influence policymaking (see Carney et al. 2017).

The transformation of the movement since 2011 has been analyzed as “contentious politics” that challenges the previous focus on students (immigration reform, citizenship status); it also has the potential to emerge as a counter-hegemonic project in that it rejects discourses that reproduce the criminalization of unauthorized migrants. In recent years, the movement has been more inclusive of different subjectivities within undocumented communities (queer, uneducated people or ones with a criminal record), thus redefining notions of citizenship. The focus shifted back to a more explicit fight against criminalisation and no longer in the direction of “legislation that would never pass.” As such, its participants can be seen as activist citizens - to quote Engin Isin - constituting themselves as citizens regardless of status (Isin and Nielsen 2008).

The strategy used by undocumented youths as the movement transformed is known as “Shout is out” or “Coming out of the shadows.” They would hold meetings and organize rallies where they normalized the act of stating out loud that they were undocumented. The practice started to empower them while portraying the diversity of the undocumented population at large. It also changed their status from a private matter to a public issue. They made the responsibility for their situation, which some initially felt was individual, a social question, by appearing as undocumented in public transforming the internalized shame attached to their illegalized status and their fear of being deported into some sort of “defiant pride”: not only naming their status but creating a political subjectivity (Butler 1997). The experiences of these immigrant youth were articulated in a common discourse that associated being undocumented with being also unafraid and unapologetic – a way of politicizing their experiences. The individual story-telling that unfolded during those “Coming out of the shadows” events allowed for a much broader and inclusive narrative, introducing an open communicative method.

<footnote n="11">¹¹Noam Chomsky, among others, voiced his critique in *Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal* (Boson: Beacon Press, 2014).</footnote>
This advocacy emerged from a loose network of undocumented students who chose to use their personal stories to attract attention. The DREAMer narrative relied on the figure of the undocumented youth portrayed as an integrated person (who grew up in the US, speaks fluent English and feels American), innocent (brought to the country as a child) and hard-working as much as successful – hence, the very embodiment of a “deserving” student. Their strategy was frequently criticized for its exclusionary effects in the first years of the movement as it implied that other immigrants were not as deserving as they were.<fnref n="11" /> The movement started to fracture as students stopped using arguments. Irreconcilable tensions became salient with the intersectionality of those who wanted to include gender and racial identities in their stories and the refusal of others to blame their parents for bringing them to the US. Nonetheless, the movement was successful in positioning the personal stories of undocumented childhood arrivals in order to influence policymaking (see Carney et al. 2017).

The transformation of the movement since 2011 has been analyzed as “contentious politics” that challenges the previous focus on students (immigration reform, citizenship status); it also has the potential to emerge as a counter-hegemonic project in that it rejects discourses that reproduce the criminalization of unauthorized migrants. In recent years, the movement has been more inclusive of different subjectivities within undocumented communities (queer, uneducated people or ones with a criminal record), thus redefining notions of citizenship. The focus shifted back to a more explicit fight against criminalisation and no longer in the direction of “legislation that would never pass.” As such, its participants can be seen as activist citizens - to quote Engin Isin - constituting themselves as citizens regardless of status (Isin and Nielsen 2008).

The strategy used by undocumented youths as the movement transformed is known as “Shout is out” or “Coming out of the shadows.” They would hold meetings and organize rallies where they normalized the act of stating out loud that they were undocumented. The practice started to empower them while portraying the diversity of the undocumented population at large. It also changed their status from a private matter to a public issue. They made the responsibility for their situation, which some initially felt was individual, a social question, by appearing as undocumented in public transforming the internalized shame attached to their illegalized status and their fear of being deported into some sort of “defiant pride”: not only naming their status but creating a political subjectivity (Butler 1997). The experiences of these immigrant youth were articulated in a common discourse that associated being undocumented with being also unafraid and unapologetic – a way of politicizing their experiences. The individual story-telling that unfolded during those “Coming out of the shadows” events allowed for a much broader and inclusive narrative, introducing an open communicative method.

<footnote n="11">¹¹Noam Chomsky, among others, voiced his critique in *Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal* (Boson: Beacon Press, 2014).</footnote>
### 11.3.1 On Activism in High School

Schools, typically, are supposed to be safe spaces. Recent studies based on theory and ethnographic observation, investigate undocumented activism (Kuge 2019; Schwiertz 2016; Gonzales 2016; Swerts 2017) but more work needs to be done across the disciplines. Empirical studies would help scholars make sense of in-between statuses, and schools are perfect places to carry them out.

I was able to attend a few sessions organized by a DREAMers' team in a New York City public school in 2013 and again in 2014, at a time when expectations were high and activism was invigorated by the recently-passed DACA measure.

I first met 16-year-old Naflan in a rally on DACA organized by the *New York Immigration Coalition*, a prominent advocacy group in New York City. He suggested I attended the meetings of the “DREAMers Club” at his school (Curtis High School, Staten Island). I attended several gatherings after that with the help of the school advisor. During the meetings, I was able to observe the interactions between students (aged from 14 to 17) as they openly spoke about their status with the group. While the majority was undocumented, a minority of students was not. Some were in the process of applying for DACA; a few had already qualified for DACA status but insisted on sharing their experience and being with the group. Others remained mostly silent but were present at each of the following sessions.

As they shared their experience of undocumentation with me, their advisor and the other students, I was struck by the diversity of the participants' countries of origin, very much a reflection of the heterogeneous foreign-born population in some parts of the city. I was amazed at how little attention was paid to where they were from, and how much to why they were here. The focus was on telling their story and deciding which action should be taken next: they were activists in the making. Their solid involvement in the movement, sustained over a period of several months, gave them a sense of purpose, a way to reach out and help others with the practicalities of applying for DACA status. Working as a local team supported by several of their teachers gave them a sense of belonging, a shared identity through humanistic dialogue while fighting against the criminalization which had relegated them (and their parents) to an outsider status. “Our common ground is: ‘not having status,’” one student said. “It is not a matter of ethnicity, it’s about papers. We all don’t have papers.” He highlighted the commonalities that drew them to one another and which generated the collective will to act.

Emotion was part of the experience. Sociologist Roberto Gonzales describes the shock that many students experience when they “discover” their undocumented status between the age of 16 and 18 as they transition from public education into adulthood, which for them brings about a whole host of limitations, like not being able to apply for a driver’s licence for lack of documentation, not being eligible for any financial aid for college, indeed no possibility to attend college at all. In one of the meetings I sat at, Naflan used the following words to describe how he learnt about his immigration status through his father: “My dad just told me one day: ‘we’re not supposed to be here.’ I wanted to prove him wrong.”
### 11.3.1 On Activism in High School

Schools, typically, are supposed to be safe spaces. Recent studies based on theory and ethnographic observation, investigate undocumented activism (Kuge 2019; Schwiertz 2016; Gonzales 2016; Swerts 2017) but more work needs to be done across the disciplines. Empirical studies would help scholars make sense of in-between statuses, and schools are perfect places to carry them out.

I was able to attend a few sessions organized by a DREAMers' team in a New York City public school in 2013 and again in 2014, at a time when expectations were high and activism was invigorated by the recently-passed DACA measure.

I first met 16-year-old Naflan in a rally on DACA organized by the *New York Immigration Coalition*, a prominent advocacy group in New York City. He suggested I attended the meetings of the “DREAMers Club” at his school (Curtis High School, Staten Island). I attended several gatherings after that with the help of the school advisor. During the meetings, I was able to observe the interactions between students (aged from 14 to 17) as they openly spoke about their status with the group. While the majority was undocumented, a minority of students was not. Some were in the process of applying for DACA; a few had already qualified for DACA status but insisted on sharing their experience and being with the group. Others remained mostly silent but were present at each of the following sessions.

As they shared their experience of undocumentation with me, their advisor and the other students, I was struck by the diversity of the participants' countries of origin, very much a reflection of the heterogeneous foreign-born population in some parts of the city. I was amazed at how little attention was paid to where they were from, and how much to why they were here. The focus was on telling their story and deciding which action should be taken next: they were activists in the making. Their solid involvement in the movement, sustained over a period of several months, gave them a sense of purpose, a way to reach out and help others with the practicalities of applying for DACA status. Working as a local team supported by several of their teachers gave them a sense of belonging, a shared identity through humanistic dialogue while fighting against the criminalization which had relegated them (and their parents) to an outsider status. “Our common ground is: ‘not having status,’” one student said. “It is not a matter of ethnicity, it’s about papers. We all don’t have papers.” He highlighted the commonalities that drew them to one another and which generated the collective will to act.

Emotion was part of the experience. Sociologist Roberto Gonzales describes the shock that many students experience when they “discover” their undocumented status between the age of 16 and 18 as they transition from public education into adulthood, which for them brings about a whole host of limitations, like not being able to apply for a driver’s licence for lack of documentation, not being eligible for any financial aid for college, indeed no possibility to attend college at all. In one of the meetings I sat at, Naflan used the following words to describe how he learnt about his immigration status through his father: “My dad just told me one day: ‘we’re not supposed to be here.’ I wanted to prove him wrong.”
As they voiced their frustration and pain publicly, a relation of trust grew among the students at the school, and I was able to observe that the repeated interactions were consolidated into deeper relations after a few weeks. Obviously, they had been able to build strategies that helped them go beyond their differences (whether social, cultural, ethnic or religious). In the safe and supportive space of the school, their shared vision of how to act fostered commonalities and developed ways of being together.

In 2017, a collective of scholars wrote a text in the form of a manifesto advocating for a global sanctuary movement. They argue that sanctuary not only gives undocumented migrants a sense of belonging to the city where they reside because what matters is where they live and not where they were born, but it also impacts their relationships with others. In fact, sanctuary fosters relationships between people, and between people and institutions (Carney et al. 2017). This is a collaborative practice, one that has the capacity to produce connections between individuals and institutions committed to the same values.

For Isin, the struggles led by undocumented migrants are typically acts of citizenship. It is common practice among undocumented youth who use the protective environment of schools to share their story (Gonzales 2016; Swerts 2017); this is also what I witnessed during the high school meetings I attended, which perfectly illustrated the principle of “shout it out” based on the “coming out of the shadows” strategy.<fnref n="12" /> Such acts, Swerts justly notes, are highly transformative events for undocumented youth that represent a first step in the formation of their political subjectivities. His comparative study of activism in Brussels and Chicago stresses the important role of schools and universities in offering a supportive environment for the initial self-organization of undocumented youth.

## 11.4 Concluding Remarks: Migrant Acts and Cosmopolitanism

Cosmopolitanism, geographer Barney Warf notes, “seeks to overcome the dichotomous fixation on ‘we’ and ‘them’, citizens and immigrants, the local and the global. In this view, there is no such thing as an illegal immigrant, for no ‘human being is illegal’” (Warf 2015, 932).<fnref n="13" /> The divide Warf refers to explains why, I believe, the cosmopolitan approach is absent from the scholarly literature on migration in the US, unlike in France for example.<fnref n="14" /> In the United States, the image of the migrant

<footnote n="12">¹²This was inspired by Harvey Milk and the Gay Rights Movement's "coming out" strategy (see Swerts 2017).</footnote>

<footnote n="13">¹³Warf here makes a reference to the Noone Is Ilegal (NOII) migrant justice group in Toronto, which has launched a solidarity city network. NOII calls for the regularization of all non-status persons.</footnote>

<footnote n="14">¹⁴Other English-speaking countries use the cosmopolitan approach in migration studies, most notably Australia.</footnote>
As they voiced their frustration and pain publicly, a relation of trust grew among the students at the school, and I was able to observe that the repeated interactions were consolidated into deeper relations after a few weeks. Obviously, they had been able to build strategies that helped them go beyond their differences (whether social, cultural, ethnic or religious). In the safe and supportive space of the school, their shared vision of how to act fostered commonalities and developed ways of being together.

In 2017, a collective of scholars wrote a text in the form of a manifesto advocating for a global sanctuary movement. They argue that sanctuary not only gives undocumented migrants a sense of belonging to the city where they reside because what matters is where they live and not where they were born, but it also impacts their relationships with others. In fact, sanctuary fosters relationships between people, and between people and institutions (Carney et al. 2017). This is a collaborative practice, one that has the capacity to produce connections between individuals and institutions committed to the same values.

For Isin, the struggles led by undocumented migrants are typically acts of citizenship. It is common practice among undocumented youth who use the protective environment of schools to share their story (Gonzales 2016; Swerts 2017); this is also what I witnessed during the high school meetings I attended, which perfectly illustrated the principle of “shout it out” based on the “coming out of the shadows” strategy.<fnref n="12" /> Such acts, Swerts justly notes, are highly transformative events for undocumented youth that represent a first step in the formation of their political subjectivities. His comparative study of activism in Brussels and Chicago stresses the important role of schools and universities in offering a supportive environment for the initial self-organization of undocumented youth.

## 11.4 Concluding Remarks: Migrant Acts and Cosmopolitanism

Cosmopolitanism, geographer Barney Warf notes, “seeks to overcome the dichotomous fixation on ‘we’ and ‘them’, citizens and immigrants, the local and the global. In this view, there is no such thing as an illegal immigrant, for no ‘human being is illegal’” (Warf 2015, 932).<fnref n="13" /> The divide Warf refers to explains why, I believe, the cosmopolitan approach is absent from the scholarly literature on migration in the US, unlike in France for example.<fnref n="14" /> In the United States, the image of the migrant

<footnote n="12">¹²This was inspired by Harvey Milk and the Gay Rights Movement’s “coming out” strategy (see Swerts 2017).</footnote>

<footnote n="13">¹³Warf here makes a reference to the Noone Is Ilegal (NOII) migrant justice group in Toronto, which has launched a solidarity city network. NOII calls for the regularization of all non-status persons.</footnote>

<footnote n="14">¹⁴Other English-speaking countries use the cosmopolitan approach in migration studies, most notably Australia.</footnote>
has historically been constructed as that of the “other”. The undocumented migrant, in particular, has long been categorized by law as the illegal alien seen as a persistent threat to US society.<fnref n="15" />

Unsurprisingly, to adopt the language of tolerance and empathy for those who have been consistently portrayed as negatively different throughout history and to celebrate the hyper diversity of cities in a country with such a “dichotomous fixation” is not an easy task, but it has been undertaken.

The now classic study by Lamont and Aksartova (2002) which documents the cosmopolitan imagination (and strategies) used by “ordinary” people to counteract racism demonstrates that the bridging of boundaries does exist in the US. Elijah Anderson’s *Cosmopolitan Canopy* (2012) is another fine example of ethnographic studies examining moments of conviviality shared between people of different backgrounds at a Philadelphia market (a segregated city where social mixing is otherwise unlikely).

Empirical research using cosmopolitan tropes is needed as it can possibly reveal more about the way people informally interact with others in sanctuary cities; it can also show to what extent acts of citizenship performed by undocumented migrants are, indeed, cosmopolitan acts. An emerging radical literature in the field of political theory advocates the migrant as the key figure of cosmopolitanism “from below” (Nail 2015; Caraus 2018; Sager 2018). Migrants’ acts of citizenship are inherently cosmopolitan, Caraus argues, because they challenge the prerogatives of the nation state and they imagine new ways of being in the world.

## References

* Bauder, H. (2016). Possibilities of urban belonging. *Antipode*, 48(2), 252–271.

* Bauder, H. (2017). Sanctuary cities: Policies and practices in international perspectives. *International Organization for Migration*, 55(2), 174–187.

* Bauder, H., & Darling, J. (2019). *Rescaling migration, citizenship and rights*. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

* Bauder, H., & Gonzalez, D. (2018). Municipal responses to ‘illegality’: Urban sanctuary across national contexts. *Social Inclusion*, 6(1), 124–134.

* Butler, J. (1997). *The psychic life of power*. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

* Caraus, T. (2018). Migrant protests as acts of cosmopolitan citizenship. *Citizenship Studies*, 22(8), 791–809.

* Carney, M., Gomez, R., Mitchell, K., & Vannini, S. (2017). Sanctuary planet: A global sanctuary movement for the time of trump. *Society & Space*. Online at https://www.societyandspace.org/articles/sanctuary-planet-a-global-sanctuary-movement-for-the-time-of-trump

* Darling, J. (2010). A city of sanctuary: The relational re-imagining of Sheffield’s asylum politics. *Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers*, 35(1), 125–140.

* Darling, J. (2017). Forced migration and the city: Irregularity, informality, and the politics of presence. *Progress in Human Geography*, 41(2), 178–198.

<footnote n="15">¹⁵ See the work of historian Mae Ngai (2004) for a study of the production of migrant illegality by US law.</footnote>
has historically been constructed as that of the “other”. The undocumented migrant, in particular, has long been categorized by law as the illegal alien seen as a persistent threat to US society.<fnref n="15" />

Unsurprisingly, to adopt the language of tolerance and empathy for those who have been consistently portrayed as negatively different throughout history and to celebrate the hyper diversity of cities in a country with such a “dichotomous fixation” is not an easy task, but it has been undertaken.

The now classic study by Lamont and Aksartova (2002) which documents the cosmopolitan imagination (and strategies) used by “ordinary” people to counteract racism demonstrates that the bridging of boundaries does exist in the US. Elijah Anderson’s *Cosmopolitan Canopy* (2012) is another fine example of ethnographic studies examining moments of conviviality shared between people of different backgrounds at a Philadelphia market (a segregated city where social mixing is otherwise unlikely).

Empirical research using cosmopolitan tropes is needed as it can possibly reveal more about the way people informally interact with others in sanctuary cities; it can also show to what extent acts of citizenship performed by undocumented migrants are, indeed, cosmopolitan acts. An emerging radical literature in the field of political theory advocates the migrant as the key figure of cosmopolitanism “from below” (Nail 2015; Caraus 2018; Sager 2018). Migrants’ acts of citizenship are inherently cosmopolitan, Caraus argues, because they challenge the prerogatives of the nation state and they imagine new ways of being in the world.

## References

* Bauder, H. (2016). Possibilities of urban belonging. *Antipode*, 48(2), 252–271.

* Bauder, H. (2017). Sanctuary cities: Policies and practices in international perspectives. *International Organization for Migration*, 55(2), 174–187.

* Bauder, H., & Darling, J. (2019). *Rescaling migration, citizenship and rights*. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

* Bauder, H., & Gonzalez, D. (2018). Municipal responses to ‘illegality’: Urban sanctuary across national contexts. *Social Inclusion*, 6(1), 124–134.

* Butler, J. (1997). *The psychic life of power*. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

* Caraus, T. (2018). Migrant protests as acts of cosmopolitan citizenship. *Citizenship Studies*, 22(8), 791–809.

* Carney, M., Gomez, R., Mitchell, K., & Vannini, S. (2017). Sanctuary planet: A global sanctuary movement for the time of trump. *Society & Space*. Online at https://www.societyandspace.org/articles/sanctuary-planet-a-global-sanctuary-movement-for-the-time-of-trump

* Darling, J. (2010). A city of sanctuary: The relational re-imagining of Sheffield’s asylum politics. *Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers*, 35(1), 125–140.

* Darling, J. (2017). Forced migration and the city: Irregularity, informality, and the politics of presence. *Progress in Human Geography*, 41(2), 178–198.

<footnote n="15">¹⁵ See the work of historian Mae Ngai (2004) for a study of the production of migrant illegality by US law.</footnote>
Darling, J., & Squire, V. (2013). Everyday enactments of sanctuary: The UK City of sanctuary movement. In R. Lippert & S. Rehaag (Eds.), *Sanctuary practices in international perspectives* (pp. 191–204). Routledge: Abingdon.

Dauvergne, C. (2016). *The new politics of immigration and the end of settler societies*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gonzales, R. (2016). *Lives in limbo: Undocumented and coming of age in America*. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Houston, S. (2019). Conceptualizing sanctuary as a process in the United States. *Geographical Review*, 109(4), 562–579.

Isin, E., & Nielsen, G. (2008). Introduction. In E. Isin & G. Nielsen (Eds.), *Acts of citizenship* (pp. 1–12). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Isin, E. (2002). *Being political: Genealogies of citizenship*. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Kuge, J. (2019). Uncovering sanctuary cities. In J. Darling & H. Bauder (Eds.), *Sanctuary cities and urban struggles*. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Chapter 2 in Ebook.

Kwon, C., & Roy, M. (2018, January 20). Local action, national impact: Standing up for sanctuary cities. *Yale Law Journal Forum*. At https://www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/local-action-national-impact

Lambert, S., & Swerts, T. (2019). 'From sanctuary to welcoming cities': Negotiating the social inclusion of undocumented migrants in Liège, Belgium. *Social Inclusion*, 7(4), 90–99.

Lamont, M., & Aksartova, S. (2002). Ordinary cosmopolitanisms. *Theory, Culture and Society*, 19(4), 1–25.

Lasch, C., Chan, R., Eagly, I., Haynes, D., Lai, A., McCormick, E., & Stumpf, J. (2018). Understanding ‘sanctuary cities’. *Boston College Law Review*, 59, 1703.

Lippert, R., & Rehaag, S. (2013). *Sanctuary practices in international perspectives: Migration, citizenship and social movements*. London: Routledge.

Nail, T. (2015). Migrant cosmopolitanism. *Public Affairs Quarterly*, 29(2), 187–199.

Ngai, M. (2004). *Impossible subjects*. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Nicholls, W. (2013). Making undocumented immigrants into legitimate political subjects: A comparison of France and the United States. *Theory, Culture and Society*, 30(3), 82–107.

Ridgley, J. (2008). Cities of refuge: Immigration enforcement, police, and the insurgent genealogies of citizenship in U.S. sanctuary cities. *Urban Geography*, 29(1), 53–77.

Robinson, J. (2002). Global and world cities: A view from off the map. *International Journal of Urban and Regional Research*, 26(3), 531–554.

Ruszczyk, S. (2018). Local governance of immigrant incorporation: How city-based organizational fields shape the cases of undocumented youth in New York City and Paris. *Comparative Migration Studies*, 6.1, 32. Online at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6223885/.

Sager, A. (2018). Reclaiming cosmopolitanism through migrant protests. In T. Caraus & E. Paris (Eds.), *Migration, protest movements and the politics of resistance* (Vol. 171, p. 185). London: Routledge.

Sassen, S. (2005). The repositioning of citizenship and alienage: Emergent subjects and spaces for politics. *Globalizations*, 2(1), 79–94.

Schwiertz, H. (2016). Transformations of the undocumented youth movement and radical egalitarian citizenship. *Citizenship Studies*, 20(5), 610–628.

Squire, V. (2011). From community cohesion to mobile solidarities: The city of sanctuary network and the *strangers into citizens* campaign. *Political Studies*, 59(2), 290–307.

Squire, V., & Bagelman, J. (2012). Taking not waiting: Space, temporality and politics in the city of sanctuary movement. In P. Nyers & K. Rygiel (Eds.), *Citizenship, migrant activism and the politics of movement* (pp. 146–164). London: Routledge.

Swerts, T. (2017). Creating space for citizenship: The liminal politics of undocumented activism. *International Journal of Urban and Regional Research*, 41(3), 379–395.
Darling, J., & Squire, V. (2013). Everyday enactments of sanctuary: The UK City of sanctuary movement. In R. Lippert & S. Rehaag (Eds.), *Sanctuary practices in international perspectives* (pp. 191–204). Routledge: Abingdon.

Dauvergne, C. (2016). *The new politics of immigration and the end of settler societies*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gonzales, R. (2016). *Lives in limbo: Undocumented and coming of age in America*. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Houston, S. (2019). Conceptualizing sanctuary as a process in the United States. *Geographical Review*, 109(4), 562–579.

Isin, E., & Nielsen, G. (2008). Introduction. In E. Isin & G. Nielsen (Eds.), *Acts of citizenship* (pp. 1–12). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Isin, E. (2002). *Being political: Genealogies of citizenship*. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Kuge, J. (2019). Uncovering sanctuary cities. In J. Darling & H. Bauder (Eds.), *Sanctuary cities and urban struggles*. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Chapter 2 in Ebook.

Kwon, C., & Roy, M. (2018, January 20). Local action, national impact: Standing up for sanctuary cities. *Yale Law Journal Forum*. At https://www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/local-action-national-impact

Lambert, S., & Swerts, T. (2019). 'From sanctuary to welcoming cities': Negotiating the social inclusion of undocumented migrants in Liège, Belgium. *Social Inclusion*, 7(4), 90–99.

Lamont, M., & Aksartova, S. (2002). Ordinary cosmopolitanisms. *Theory, Culture and Society*, 19(4), 1–25.

Lasch, C., Chan, R., Eagly, I., Haynes, D., Lai, A., McCormick, E., & Stumpf, J. (2018). Understanding ‘sanctuary cities’. *Boston College Law Review*, 59, 1703.

Lippert, R., & Rehaag, S. (2013). *Sanctuary practices in international perspectives: Migration, citizenship and social movements*. London: Routledge.

Nail, T. (2015). Migrant cosmopolitanism. *Public Affairs Quarterly*, 29(2), 187–199.

Ngai, M. (2004). *Impossible subjects*. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Nicholls, W. (2013). Making undocumented immigrants into legitimate political subjects: A comparison of France and the United States. *Theory, Culture and Society*, 30(3), 82–107.

Ridgley, J. (2008). Cities of refuge: Immigration enforcement, police, and the insurgent genealogies of citizenship in U.S. sanctuary cities. *Urban Geography*, 29(1), 53–77.

Robinson, J. (2002). Global and world cities: A view from off the map. *International Journal of Urban and Regional Research*, 26(3), 531–554.

Ruszczyk, S. (2018). Local governance of immigrant incorporation: How city-based organizational fields shape the cases of undocumented youth in New York City and Paris. *Comparative Migration Studies*, 6.1, 32. Online at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6223885/.

Sager, A. (2018). Reclaiming cosmopolitanism through migrant protests. In T. Caraus & E. Paris (Eds.), *Migration, protest movements and the politics of resistance* (Vol. 171, p. 185). London: Routledge.

Sassen, S. (2005). The repositioning of citizenship and alienage: Emergent subjects and spaces for politics. *Globalizations*, 2(1), 79–94.

Schwiertz, H. (2016). Transformations of the undocumented youth movement and radical egalitarian citizenship. *Citizenship Studies*, 20(5), 610–628.

Squire, V. (2011). From community cohesion to mobile solidarities: The city of sanctuary network and the *strangers into citizens* campaign. *Political Studies*, 59(2), 290–307.

Squire, V., & Bagelman, J. (2012). Taking not waiting: Space, temporality and politics in the city of sanctuary movement. In P. Nyers & K. Rygiel (Eds.), *Citizenship, migrant activism and the politics of movement* (pp. 146–164). London: Routledge.

Swerts, T. (2017). Creating space for citizenship: The liminal politics of undocumented activism. *International Journal of Urban and Regional Research*, 41(3), 379–395.
Torres, A. (2017). I am undocumented and a New Yorker': Affirmative city citizenship and New York City's IDNYC program. *Fordham Law Review*, *86*, 335.

Varsanyi, M. (2006). Interrogating ‘urban citizenship’ *vis-à-vis* un-documented migration. *Citizenship Studies, 10*(2), 229–249.

Warf, B. (2015). Global cities, cosmopolitanism and geographies of tolerance. *Urban Geography, 36*(6), 927–946.

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

<figure><img src="image_33.png" /></figure>
Torres, A. (2017). I am undocumented and a New Yorker': Affirmative city citizenship and New York City's IDNYC program. *Fordham Law Review*, *86*, 335.

Varsanyi, M. (2006). Interrogating ‘urban citizenship’ *vis-à-vis* un-documented migration. *Citizenship Studies, 10*(2), 229–249.

Warf, B. (2015). Global cities, cosmopolitanism and geographies of tolerance. *Urban Geography, 36*(6), 927–946.

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

<figure><img src="image_33.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_34.png" /></figure>

Chapter 12

Migrant Cosmopolitanism in Emirati
and Saudi Cities: Practices and Belonging
in Exclusionary Contexts

Hélène Thiollet and Laure Assaf

**12.1 Introduction**

Since the beginning of the oil era, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, have experienced a massive increase in regional and international immigration, which translated into some of the highest ratio of foreign residents worldwide. Arab, Asian and European migrants have brought their skills but also their social, gender, cultural, religious and political identities to sparsely populated countries like Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and to larger societies like Oman and Saudi Arabia. In Qatar and the UAE, migrants have come to represent up to 90% of the population and 98% of the workforce. At the same time, the legal and political context of the Gulf severely limits the formal incorporation of these foreign residents within host societies. In all GCC countries, citizenship regimes are based on ethnicity and autochthony; in practice, access to citizenship was prevented or heavily restricted from the late 1970s on (Beaugrand 2018; Khalaf et al. 2014; Partrick 2012; Okruhlik 1999; Vora 2013). Regardless of the duration of their residence, foreigners are considered to be “temporary labor” and kept “in check” (Longva 1999) through both formal regulations and informal or semi-formal practices which enforce exclusion and segmentation. Among them, the system of sponsorship

This chapter draws upon research published by the authors as “Cosmopolitanism in exclusionary contexts” in *Population Space and Place*. 2020; e2358. https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.2358

H. Thiollet (✉)
CNRS CERI, Sciences Po, IC Migrations, Paris, France
e-mail: helene.thiollet@sciencespo.fr

L. Assaf
Université Paris Ouest Nanterre, Nanterre, France
NYU Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
<figure><img src="image_34.png" /></figure>

Chapter 12

Migrant Cosmopolitanism in Emirati
and Saudi Cities: Practices and Belonging
in Exclusionary Contexts

Hélène Thiollet and Laure Assaf

**12.1 Introduction**

Since the beginning of the oil era, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, have experienced a massive increase in regional and international immigration, which translated into some of the highest ratio of foreign residents worldwide. Arab, Asian and European migrants have brought their skills but also their social, gender, cultural, religious and political identities to sparsely populated countries like Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and to larger societies like Oman and Saudi Arabia. In Qatar and the UAE, migrants have come to represent up to 90% of the population and 98% of the workforce. At the same time, the legal and political context of the Gulf severely limits the formal incorporation of these foreign residents within host societies. In all GCC countries, citizenship regimes are based on ethnicity and autochthony; in practice, access to citizenship was prevented or heavily restricted from the late 1970s on (Beaugrand 2018; Khalaf et al. 2014; Partrick 2012; Okruhlik 1999; Vora 2013). Regardless of the duration of their residence, foreigners are considered to be “temporary labor” and kept “in check” (Longva 1999) through both formal regulations and informal or semi-formal practices which enforce exclusion and segmentation. Among them, the system of sponsorship

This chapter draws upon research published by the authors as “Cosmopolitanism in exclusionary contexts” in *Population Space and Place*. 2020; e2358. https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.2358

H. Thiollet (✉)
CNRS CERI, Sciences Po, IC Migrations, Paris, France
e-mail: helene.thiollet@sciencespo.fr

L. Assaf
Université Paris Ouest Nanterre, Nanterre, France
NYU Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
named *kafâla* binds each migrant worker to a citizen *kafîl* (sponsor), who is usually the employer.

In the 2000s, migration policies have changed. On the one hand, in parallel with a new “migration boom” in the region in the early 2000s, migration policies have become geared towards heavier control and discrimination (Thiollet 2019). In the wake of the 2011 Arab uprisings and, more recently, the diplomatic conflict between Saudi Arabia and the UAE and Qatar as well as the war in Yemen, Gulf monarchies have turned to more repressive modes of governance, which go together with a tighter grip on migration flows (Lori 2019; Thiollet 2015). On the other hand, the diversification of oil economies has boosted Gulf countries’ ambitions to secure high-profile membership in the international community through the organization of mega events in the sectors of sports and culture, economic investments abroad, military intervention and cooperation, and humanitarian aid. At the same time as it developed global tourism, the UAE has targeted highly skilled immigrants by offering “golden visas” or relatively long-term residence to real-estate investors, businesspeople and “innovators.”<fnref n="1" />

While enforcing more stringently exclusionary policies towards lower- and middle-class migrants, countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia have thus framed the diversity of their populations within an official rhetoric that lays claim to the countries' cosmopolitanism and openness to the world.<fnref n="2" /> In Saudi Arabia, diversity is often framed as part and parcel of Islamic universalism, linked to Islamic pilgrimages and the mobility of pilgrims within and to Mecca and Medina.<fnref n="3" /> In the UAE, diversity is framed as a marketable asset within processes of city-branding – a form of “commodified cosmopolitanism” (Assaf 2017b).<fnref n="4" /> More recently, the cosmopolitan theme has been reshaped into a national project around the notion of tolerance – portraying the UAE as a beacon of peaceful coexistence in the Muslim world (Thiollet and Assaf 2018). These discourses have concrete effects on migrants

<footnote n="1">¹Gulf governments seek to maintain high immigration in order to sustain their labor markets (Khalaf et al. 2014). Such discriminatory practices are aligned with the “global race for talents” (Shachar 2006) in liberal democracies, widening inequalities between migrants and citizens but also between migrants, creating hierarchical differences in residence and citizenship based on class, ethnicity, religion and gender (Mau 2010; Thiollet 2019).</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²It has to be noted that in other Gulf countries, the turn towards economic diversification has been accompanied by a very different rhetoric. Kuwait, for example, has witnessed a rise in xenophobic discourses, including among prominent MPs, which resulted in further exclusionary politics towards all foreign residents.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³Both pilgrimages – Hajj, happening every year during one specific month, and the Umrah, or small pilgrimage, which can happen any time – involve unparalleled internal, international and domestic mass mobility: for the 2019 Hajj, 1.8 million Muslims came to Saudi Arabia during the month of Ramadan and more than half of the 600,000 “internal” pilgrims came from all over the kingdom. The 2018 Umrah attracted 11.5 million internal pilgrims and 6.7 million external ones, according to the General Authority for Statistics for Hajj.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴See the chapter by Pagès el Karoui in this book for another detailed analysis of cosmopolitanism as commodification in Dubai.</footnote>
named *kafâla* binds each migrant worker to a citizen *kafîl* (sponsor), who is usually the employer.

In the 2000s, migration policies have changed. On the one hand, in parallel with a new “migration boom” in the region in the early 2000s, migration policies have become geared towards heavier control and discrimination (Thiollet 2019). In the wake of the 2011 Arab uprisings and, more recently, the diplomatic conflict between Saudi Arabia and the UAE and Qatar as well as the war in Yemen, Gulf monarchies have turned to more repressive modes of governance, which go together with a tighter grip on migration flows (Lori 2019; Thiollet 2015). On the other hand, the diversification of oil economies has boosted Gulf countries’ ambitions to secure high-profile membership in the international community through the organization of mega events in the sectors of sports and culture, economic investments abroad, military intervention and cooperation, and humanitarian aid. At the same time as it developed global tourism, the UAE has targeted highly skilled immigrants by offering “golden visas” or relatively long-term residence to real-estate investors, businesspeople and “innovators.”<fnref n="1" />

While enforcing more stringently exclusionary policies towards lower- and middle-class migrants, countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia have thus framed the diversity of their populations within an official rhetoric that lays claim to the countries' cosmopolitanism and openness to the world.<fnref n="2" /> In Saudi Arabia, diversity is often framed as part and parcel of Islamic universalism, linked to Islamic pilgrimages and the mobility of pilgrims within and to Mecca and Medina.<fnref n="3" /> In the UAE, diversity is framed as a marketable asset within processes of city-branding – a form of “commodified cosmopolitanism” (Assaf 2017b).<fnref n="4" /> More recently, the cosmopolitan theme has been reshaped into a national project around the notion of tolerance – portraying the UAE as a beacon of peaceful coexistence in the Muslim world (Thiollet and Assaf 2018). These discourses have concrete effects on migrants

<footnote n="1">¹Gulf governments seek to maintain high immigration in order to sustain their labor markets (Khalaf et al. 2014). Such discriminatory practices are aligned with the “global race for talents” (Shachar 2006) in liberal democracies, widening inequalities between migrants and citizens but also between migrants, creating hierarchical differences in residence and citizenship based on class, ethnicity, religion and gender (Mau 2010; Thiollet 2019).</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²It has to be noted that in other Gulf countries, the turn towards economic diversification has been accompanied by a very different rhetoric. Kuwait, for example, has witnessed a rise in xenophobic discourses, including among prominent MPs, which resulted in further exclusionary politics towards all foreign residents.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³Both pilgrimages – Hajj, happening every year during one specific month, and the Umrah, or small pilgrimage, which can happen any time – involve unparalleled internal, international and domestic mass mobility: for the 2019 Hajj, 1.8 million Muslims came to Saudi Arabia during the month of Ramadan and more than half of the 600,000 “internal” pilgrims came from all over the kingdom. The 2018 Umrah attracted 11.5 million internal pilgrims and 6.7 million external ones, according to the General Authority for Statistics for Hajj.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴See the chapter by Pagès el Karoui in this book for another detailed analysis of cosmopolitanism as commodification in Dubai.</footnote>
and non-migrants as they inform policies and thus affect everyday lives, producing contradictory beliefs and aspirations, behaviors, and informal or self-regulations.

In this context, talking about cosmopolitanism in the Gulf can sound like a con-
tradiction. Beyond diversity, scholarly definitions of cosmopolitanism are usually
loaded with normative expectations that appear at odds with the Gulf’s “exclusion-
ary contexts” (Parreñas et al. 2018; Pilati 2016). In this chapter, we argue that cos-
mopolitan encounters observed in Emirati and Saudi cities embody much broader
tensions at work in contemporary cosmopolitan situations – tensions between hier-
archies and sympathies, exclusion and incorporation, segregation and circulation,
conflicts and transactions, structural constraints and local emancipation.

This article fits in recent debates around subaltern or “working-class” (Werbner
1999) or “discrepant” cosmopolitanism (Clifford 1992) that have promoted a less
normative approach to cosmopolitan conditions, understood as the default condition
of the majority of the world population in a global era (Beck 2006). The Gulf urban
contexts, marked both by their “superdiverse” populations (Vertovec 2007) and
their exclusionary politics, constitute a valuable lens to explore the paradoxical con-
dition of cast out, discarded, and rejected cosmopolitans (De Genova and Peutz
2010). Although the scholarly literature and activist expertise on migration in the
Gulf often denounces illiberal policies and the mis-treatment of migrant workers
(Gardner et al. 2013; Human Rights Watch 2014), recent works have addressed the
alternative and informal forms of belonging developed by foreign residents in these
contexts (Assaf 2017a; Beaugrand 2018; Lori 2019; Thiollet 2010; Vora 2013;
Walsh 2014).

Building upon this line of research, and in line with discussions on situated, plu-
ral, abject and subaltern cosmopolitanisms (Nyers 2003; Schiller and Irving 2015;
Zeng 2014), we seek to explore cosmopolitan practices and encounters in the Gulf
at the city level. Scholarship in urban studies has brought forward the intense spatial
segregation in the major cities of the Gulf region, which reflects the transient and
precarious status of many foreign residents (Dresch 2006; Elsheshtawy 2019;
Khalaf 2006). Segregation operates between citizens and non-citizens, but also
across the category of citizens and among immigrant communities along the lines of
class, gender, and ethnicity. At the same time, urban space is where these diverse
populations cross paths, meet and sometimes mix. Migrants have been and remain
central to Gulf urban development – both as city-builders (in the construction and
service sector) and as city-dwellers. In this hyper-urbanized region, observing
everyday lives at the city level offers an ideal vantage point to grasp the ambiguities
and complexities of immigrants’ cosmopolitan practices in segregated contexts.<fnref n="5" />
How does cosmopolitanism operate within the discourses and practices of foreign-
ers? How do cosmopolitan encounters actually happen in segregated urban environ-
ments? Furthermore, what does the Gulf tell us about the contradictions and
paradoxes of cosmopolitanism in general?

<footnote n="5">⁵ Cities contain about 88% of the population in Saudi Arabia and 86% in the Emirates.</footnote>
and non-migrants as they inform policies and thus affect everyday lives, producing contradictory beliefs and aspirations, behaviors, and informal or self-regulations.

In this context, talking about cosmopolitanism in the Gulf can sound like a con-
tradiction. Beyond diversity, scholarly definitions of cosmopolitanism are usually
loaded with normative expectations that appear at odds with the Gulf’s “exclusion-
ary contexts” (Parreñas et al. 2018; Pilati 2016). In this chapter, we argue that cos-
mopolitan encounters observed in Emirati and Saudi cities embody much broader
tensions at work in contemporary cosmopolitan situations – tensions between hier-
archies and sympathies, exclusion and incorporation, segregation and circulation,
conflicts and transactions, structural constraints and local emancipation.

This article fits in recent debates around subaltern or “working-class” (Werbner 1999) or “discrepant” cosmopolitanism (Clifford 1992) that have promoted a less normative approach to cosmopolitan conditions, understood as the default condition of the majority of the world population in a global era (Beck 2006). The Gulf urban contexts, marked both by their “superdiverse” populations (Vertovec 2007) and their exclusionary politics, constitute a valuable lens to explore the paradoxical condition of cast out, discarded, and rejected cosmopolitans (De Genova and Peutz 2010). Although the scholarly literature and activist expertise on migration in the Gulf often denounces illiberal policies and the mis-treatment of migrant workers (Gardner et al. 2013; Human Rights Watch 2014), recent works have addressed the alternative and informal forms of belonging developed by foreign residents in these contexts (Assaf 2017a; Beaugrand 2018; Lori 2019; Thiollet 2010; Vora 2013; Walsh 2014).

Building upon this line of research, and in line with discussions on situated, plural, abject and subaltern cosmopolitanisms (Nyers 2003; Schiller and Irving 2015; Zeng 2014), we seek to explore cosmopolitan practices and encounters in the Gulf at the city level. Scholarship in urban studies has brought forward the intense spatial segregation in the major cities of the Gulf region, which reflects the transient and precarious status of many foreign residents (Dresch 2006; Elsheshtawy 2019; Khalaf 2006). Segregation operates between citizens and non-citizens, but also across the category of citizens and among immigrant communities along the lines of class, gender, and ethnicity. At the same time, urban space is where these diverse populations cross paths, meet and sometimes mix. Migrants have been and remain central to Gulf urban development – both as city-builders (in the construction and service sector) and as city-dwellers. In this hyper-urbanized region, observing everyday lives at the city level offers an ideal vantage point to grasp the ambiguities and complexities of immigrants’ cosmopolitan practices in segregated contexts.<fnref n="5" /> How does cosmopolitanism operate within the discourses and practices of foreigners? How do cosmopolitan encounters actually happen in segregated urban environments? Furthermore, what does the Gulf tell us about the contradictions and paradoxes of cosmopolitanism in general?

<footnote n="5">⁵ Cities contain about 88% of the population in Saudi Arabia and 86% in the Emirates.</footnote>
We use ethnographic evidence collected at the city level to show how everyday encounters and interactions between city-dwellers display individual and collective dispositions for diversity. Through a comparison between Riyadh and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, we look at internal tensions produced by cosmopolitan situations in Gulf contexts. We first explore the ambivalence of self-presentation in public spaces, through the example of dress codes. While the injunction for citizens to wear the “national dress” in public can appear as an extension of the spatial segregation between citizens and non-citizens, we show how city-dwellers may also use dress codes to circumvent established boundaries between citizens and foreigners, as well as between genders and ethnic groups. We then focus on the paradoxes of cosmopolitan encounters in segregated urban contexts, exploring social practices and interactions in two emblematic sites of urban diversity: modern marketplaces, such as shopping malls, and streets. Looking at the modes of inclusion and exclusion in these spaces, we argue that they become the sites of a “segregated cosmopolitanism” (Mermier 2015): they allow and even foster encounters with the city’s urban diversity, in particular through consumption practices. The spatial boundaries and temporariness of these cosmopolitan interactions is precisely what allows them to take place. At the same time, they cannot be easily dismissed, as they contribute to shape city-dwellers’ subjectivities – their tastes, attitudes, and aspirations.

This research draws upon ethnographies and qualitative discourse analysis in three urban contexts: Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and Jeddah. While Dubai is often considered as the epitome of the “super-diverse” city, these three cities display similar levels of diversity. We compare case studies that both converge and diverge at the national and urban scale. The UAE and Saudi Arabia stand at both ends of the GCC demographic spectrum. Saudi Arabia, the largest country with 33.5 million inhabitants, has the largest immigrant population in sheer numbers (around 11 million) but the smallest when considered as a share of the total population (30%). The UAE (total population 9.4 million) has, along with Qatar, the largest proportion of immigrants in the population (89%) and thus a relatively small total number of nationals. Both countries enjoy high levels of urbanization: 86.5% for the UAE and 83.8% for Saudi Arabia (UNDESA-Population Division 2017).

For the UAE, fieldwork conducted in the capital Abu Dhabi from 2010 to 2016 focused on young Emirati nationals and Arab foreign residents (Egyptians, Lebanese, Palestinian, Jordanians, Syrians, Iraqis, Yemenis, and other GCC nationalities) who grew up in the city. For Saudi Arabia, fieldwork was conducted in Riyadh and Jeddah (2006, 2013–2015) on Eritrean, Sudanese, Ethiopian, Yemeni and Pakistani immigrants. We rely on both individual and institutional discourses in their contexts and system of references and on the participant observation of social interactions, spaces and practices.
We use ethnographic evidence collected at the city level to show how everyday encounters and interactions between city-dwellers display individual and collective dispositions for diversity. Through a comparison between Riyadh and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, we look at internal tensions produced by cosmopolitan situations in Gulf contexts. We first explore the ambivalence of self-presentation in public spaces, through the example of dress codes. While the injunction for citizens to wear the “national dress” in public can appear as an extension of the spatial segregation between citizens and non-citizens, we show how city-dwellers may also use dress codes to circumvent established boundaries between citizens and foreigners, as well as between genders and ethnic groups. We then focus on the paradoxes of cosmopolitan encounters in segregated urban contexts, exploring social practices and interactions in two emblematic sites of urban diversity: modern marketplaces, such as shopping malls, and streets. Looking at the modes of inclusion and exclusion in these spaces, we argue that they become the sites of a “segregated cosmopolitanism” (Mermier 2015): they allow and even foster encounters with the city’s urban diversity, in particular through consumption practices. The spatial boundaries and temporariness of these cosmopolitan interactions is precisely what allows them to take place. At the same time, they cannot be easily dismissed, as they contribute to shape city-dwellers’ subjectivities – their tastes, attitudes, and aspirations.

This research draws upon ethnographies and qualitative discourse analysis in three urban contexts: Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and Jeddah. While Dubai is often considered as the epitome of the “super-diverse” city, these three cities display similar levels of diversity. We compare case studies that both converge and diverge at the national and urban scale. The UAE and Saudi Arabia stand at both ends of the GCC demographic spectrum. Saudi Arabia, the largest country with 33.5 million inhabitants, has the largest immigrant population in sheer numbers (around 11 million) but the smallest when considered as a share of the total population (30%). The UAE (total population 9.4 million) has, along with Qatar, the largest proportion of immigrants in the population (89%) and thus a relatively small total number of nationals. Both countries enjoy high levels of urbanization: 86.5% for the UAE and 83.8% for Saudi Arabia (UNDESA-Population Division 2017).

For the UAE, fieldwork conducted in the capital Abu Dhabi from 2010 to 2016 focused on young Emirati nationals and Arab foreign residents (Egyptians, Lebanese, Palestinian, Jordanians, Syrians, Iraqis, Yemenis, and other GCC nationalities) who grew up in the city. For Saudi Arabia, fieldwork was conducted in Riyadh and Jeddah (2006, 2013–2015) on Eritrean, Sudanese, Ethiopian, Yemeni and Pakistani immigrants. We rely on both individual and institutional discourses in their contexts and system of references and on the participant observation of social interactions, spaces and practices.
## 12.2 Residential Segregations, Dress Codes and Cosmopolitan Modes of Identification

In spite of national and local variations, residential segregation is a structuring feature of Gulf cities since nationals receive land and/or housing that tends to confine them to specific districts. While poorer migrants – who live in labor camps outside the city’s limits or, in the case of domestic workers, in their employers’ homes – are excluded from access to urban space, wealthy expatriates generally live in exclusive gated communities. But for the intermediate classes which comprise the majority of the population, the diverse populations inhabiting the urban space constitute an important dimension of daily life. This is true even if spatial configurations and urban settings can vary, as exemplified by our two case studies.

In Saudi Arabia, middle-class migrants tend to live in multicultural neighborhoods close to city centers or in medium-income suburban areas. Low-income migrants live in peripheral areas of informal urban growth. The Saudi situation, however, is not uniform. In the eastern oil-town, urbanization is spatially segregated (Seccombe and Lawless 1986) while Riyadh has both impoverished neighborhoods in the city center and in suburban areas where both migrants and poor nationals reside (Ménoret 2018); and Jeddah displays historical features of cosmopolitan mixing of socio-ethnic groups linked to the mobilities of pilgrims (Yamani 2009). In the UAE, many low-income migrants are relegated to labor camps on the urban outskirts (Gardner et al. 2013), but patterns of segregation vary according to each emirate. While Dubai can be described as an urban sprawl along the Gulf, in Abu Dhabi, the high density of the main island has led to a relative mixing of middle-class and lower middle-class populations in an “emerging global city” (Elsheshtawy 2010). Segregation occurs at a more micro-scale: at the level of districts or even within the same block or building (Dresch 2006; Khalaf 2006). Recent developments, by extending the city towards the neighboring islands and the mainland, have brought about more segregated residential areas according to nationality and social class.

Vernacular dress codes can appear as a prolongation, in public spaces, of the residential segregations described above. But they are also subjected to reinterpretations by foreign residents and locals alike, which question the boundaries between nationals and foreigners. Beyond residence, everyday practices in urban spaces thus offer crucial insights into cosmopolitan encounters. In both countries, status groups are recognizable through specific “regimes of visibility” (Lussault 2013) manifested by differentiated dress codes. “National” dress codes ensure that citizens stand out and do not risk being confused with non-citizens. Even if they might wear “Western” garments in more informal contexts, Saudi or Emirati citizens indeed tend to wear mainstream “national” dress in public and work places: the ‘abûya (black cloak) and a head cover (of various shapes) for women and the white dress named kandûra (UAE) or thawb (Saudi Arabia), the shmagh (chequered headscarf), the guthra (white scarf), and the ‘iqâl (black cord around the scarf) for men. The historical construction of these national dresses across the region closely follows processes of
## 12.2 Residential Segregations, Dress Codes and Cosmopolitan Modes of Identification

In spite of national and local variations, residential segregation is a structuring feature of Gulf cities since nationals receive land and/or housing that tends to confine them to specific districts. While poorer migrants – who live in labor camps outside the city’s limits or, in the case of domestic workers, in their employers’ homes – are excluded from access to urban space, wealthy expatriates generally live in exclusive gated communities. But for the intermediate classes which comprise the majority of the population, the diverse populations inhabiting the urban space constitute an important dimension of daily life. This is true even if spatial configurations and urban settings can vary, as exemplified by our two case studies.

In Saudi Arabia, middle-class migrants tend to live in multicultural neighborhoods close to city centers or in medium-income suburban areas. Low-income migrants live in peripheral areas of informal urban growth. The Saudi situation, however, is not uniform. In the eastern oil-town, urbanization is spatially segregated (Seccombe and Lawless 1986) while Riyadh has both impoverished neighborhoods in the city center and in suburban areas where both migrants and poor nationals reside (Ménoret 2018); and Jeddah displays historical features of cosmopolitan mixing of socio-ethnic groups linked to the mobilities of pilgrims (Yamani 2009). In the UAE, many low-income migrants are relegated to labor camps on the urban outskirts (Gardner et al. 2013), but patterns of segregation vary according to each emirate. While Dubai can be described as an urban sprawl along the Gulf, in Abu Dhabi, the high density of the main island has led to a relative mixing of middle-class and lower middle-class populations in an “emerging global city” (Elsheshtawy 2010). Segregation occurs at a more micro-scale: at the level of districts or even within the same block or building (Dresch 2006; Khalaf 2006). Recent developments, by extending the city towards the neighboring islands and the mainland, have brought about more segregated residential areas according to nationality and social class.

Vernacular dress codes can appear as a prolongation, in public spaces, of the residential segregations described above. But they are also subjected to reinterpretations by foreign residents and locals alike, which question the boundaries between nationals and foreigners. Beyond residence, everyday practices in urban spaces thus offer crucial insights into cosmopolitan encounters. In both countries, status groups are recognizable through specific “regimes of visibility” (Lussault 2013) manifested by differentiated dress codes. “National” dress codes ensure that citizens stand out and do not risk being confused with non-citizens. Even if they might wear “Western” garments in more informal contexts, Saudi or Emirati citizens indeed tend to wear mainstream “national” dress in public and work places: the ‘abûya (black cloak) and a head cover (of various shapes) for women and the white dress named kandûra (UAE) or thawb (Saudi Arabia), the shmagh (chequered headscarf), the guthra (white scarf), and the ‘iqâl (black cord around the scarf) for men. The historical construction of these national dresses across the region closely follows processes of
nation-building (Akinci 2019; Thiollet 2010). They took on a heightened importance from the 1980s on, along with emerging anxieties among the citizen population regarding the demographic importance of foreigners and their potential impact on local society. Foreign residents are generally not expected to wear national outfits and, in some cases, can face social sanctions for doing. Daily dresses for most of them are thus related to the workplace, following corporate dress codes; other ethnic or national dresses are usually worn on weekends and holidays.

However, the apparent consolidation of the citizens/non-citizens divide through dress codes is subject to many variations and subtle differences which come to undermine, and at times to blur, this very distinction. Gender hierarchies can take precedence over the need for national distinction. This is the case of the female dress code in Saudi Arabia: until 2019, all women were required by law to wear the ‘abâya in public spaces.<fnref n="6" /> More subtle differences, however, operated: foreign women would forego wearing a veil while strong variations in fashion among Arab and Muslim foreign women would correspond to positions in a class and race-based hierarchy, among Saudis as well as across nationalities (Le Renard 2014).

To some extent, this common dress code, while constraining, allowed migrant women to blend in. Young Eritrean Christian girls interviewed in Riyadh claimed to wear the veil and sometimes cover their face with a *niqab* so as to move around in public spaces without being noticed. Far from these diversionary strategies, clothing can also amount to a subversive claim: wearing a proper Saudi outfit is a demonstration of an individual partaking in an Islamic mode of belonging which is framed as strongly “Saudi.” During an interview in Riyadh, a young Jeddah-born Pakistani lawyer educated in the United States framed the fact that she was wearing the ‘abâya and the veil, speaking perfect Arabic (both dialect and standard) as part of her claim of a strong attachment to Saudi Arabia, Islam and to Jeddah, where her parents still lived and where she grew up. In her discourse, belonging to Jeddah was entrenched with a consciously idealized definition of “Saudi-ness” linked to Islam and a pious life. She notably contrasted Saudi Arabia, where she could wear “her” veil and “her” *abâya*, to the USA, where her dress as a religious marker was constantly under attack. She described herself as “completely integrated” yet frustrated with not “being” Saudi. After studying at elite universities in the United States, she “returned home” and expected some sort of recognition. In the interview, she lamented her outsider status while often repeating that she “fitted in” perfectly.

Foreign men in Saudi Arabia also sometimes wear the *thawb* in specific circumstances or as a carefully negotiated understanding of their belonging. Various factors distinguish foreigners who “can” wear the *thawb* and those who cannot. An Eritrean immigrant in his late forties wearing the *thawb*, *shmagh* and ‘*iqâl* was interviewed at his workplace in Jeddah. He had arrived in Saudi Arabia in 1982 and immediately settled in Jeddah and learned Arabic. Considering himself a

<footnote n="6">⁶In Saudi Arabia, the black ‘*abâya* was an official obligation for women in public spaces, migrant and non-migrant alike and in late 2017 coloured ‘*abâyât* started to be tolerated in urban areas. The dress code for women was all together suppressed in 2019 in the context of the country’s opening to tourism.</footnote>
nation-building (Akinci 2019; Thiollet 2010). They took on a heightened importance from the 1980s on, along with emerging anxieties among the citizen population regarding the demographic importance of foreigners and their potential impact on local society. Foreign residents are generally not expected to wear national outfits and, in some cases, can face social sanctions for doing. Daily dresses for most of them are thus related to the workplace, following corporate dress codes; other ethnic or national dresses are usually worn on weekends and holidays.

However, the apparent consolidation of the citizens/non-citizens divide through dress codes is subject to many variations and subtle differences which come to undermine, and at times to blur, this very distinction. Gender hierarchies can take precedence over the need for national distinction. This is the case of the female dress code in Saudi Arabia: until 2019, all women were required by law to wear the ‘abâya in public spaces.<fnref n="6" /> More subtle differences, however, operated: foreign women would forego wearing a veil while strong variations in fashion among Arab and Muslim foreign women would correspond to positions in a class and race-based hierarchy, among Saudis as well as across nationalities (Le Renard 2014).

To some extent, this common dress code, while constraining, allowed migrant women to blend in. Young Eritrean Christian girls interviewed in Riyadh claimed to wear the veil and sometimes cover their face with a *niqab* so as to move around in public spaces without being noticed. Far from these diversionary strategies, clothing can also amount to a subversive claim: wearing a proper Saudi outfit is a demonstration of an individual partaking in an Islamic mode of belonging which is framed as strongly “Saudi.” During an interview in Riyadh, a young Jeddah-born Pakistani lawyer educated in the United States framed the fact that she was wearing the ‘abâya and the veil, speaking perfect Arabic (both dialect and standard) as part of her claim of a strong attachment to Saudi Arabia, Islam and to Jeddah, where her parents still lived and where she grew up. In her discourse, belonging to Jeddah was entrenched with a consciously idealized definition of “Saudi-ness” linked to Islam and a pious life. She notably contrasted Saudi Arabia, where she could wear “her” veil and “her” *abâya*, to the USA, where her dress as a religious marker was constantly under attack. She described herself as “completely integrated” yet frustrated with not “being” Saudi. After studying at elite universities in the United States, she “returned home” and expected some sort of recognition. In the interview, she lamented her outsider status while often repeating that she “fitted in” perfectly.

Foreign men in Saudi Arabia also sometimes wear the *thawb* in specific circumstances or as a carefully negotiated understanding of their belonging. Various factors distinguish foreigners who “can” wear the *thawb* and those who cannot. An Eritrean immigrant in his late forties wearing the *thawb*, *shmagh* and ‘*iqâl* was interviewed at his workplace in Jeddah. He had arrived in Saudi Arabia in 1982 and immediately settled in Jeddah and learned Arabic. Considering himself a

<footnote n="6">⁶In Saudi Arabia, the black ‘*abâya* was an official obligation for women in public spaces, migrant and non-migrant alike and in late 2017 coloured ‘*abâyât* started to be tolerated in urban areas. The dress code for women was all together suppressed in 2019 in the context of the country’s opening to tourism.</footnote>
well-integrated citizen of Jeddah, he works as a doorman at a private folklore museum in the city center. His comments on the artifacts exposed in the museum showed his knowledge and fondness for Hijazi folk culture. When asked if he wore the Saudi attire for his work, he responded that it was clearly important to look Saudi but that he also wore the outfit at home. He underlined the closeness of Southwestern Arabian traditions with those of eastern Eritrea and Sudan, claiming that it was only natural that he should fit in and dress like a Hejazi. In Jeddah, other Yemeni, Sudanese and Ethiopian interviewees also confirmed that they regularly wore the *thob*, especially for Friday prayers at the mosque or when meeting friends in public.

In the UAE, while foreigners wearing the national dress is generally frowned upon, similar practices exist among young adults who attended public schools, where a majority of pupils are Emirati citizens. Many young Arab men met in Abu Dhabi – of Egyptian, Palestinian, Syrian or Iraqi origin – had attended these schools and kept close friendship ties with Emirati classmates. They thus tended to wear the *dishdasha* in social outings with their Emirati friends, as did young women with the ‘abâya when invited to Emirati weddings. Outside of these social settings, however, the majority of the foreign youths tend to adopt dress codes that neutralize the signs of national or ethnic status, such as jeans, t-shirts and sneakers – while following more generational norms of taste and trend. These outfits are also at times adopted by Emirati youths, as a way to blend in with the diverse population of Emirati cities. Many young citizens interviewed in Abu Dhabi explained how they sometimes decided to wear jeans instead of the national dress, and to speak English in public spaces, so that they would escape temporarily the injunctions and norms related to their national status.

These various cases reflect the nuances that already exist within the most visible modes of segregation and the possibility of negotiating belonging according to personal and incidental circumstances linked to various characteristics of the individual migrant but also the duration of presence in the city, cultural capital and social networks.

## 12.3 Segregated Cosmopolitanisms in Shopping Malls

Shopping malls are symbolic of the large-scale projects that illustrate the economic diversification of Gulf economies in the early 2000s. While these spaces have often been studied as icons of modernity standardizing consumer culture and identity (Zukin 1998), an extensive body of scholarship looks at malls as examples of the variety of urban contexts and cultures (Abaza 2001; Assaf and Camelin 2017). We argue here that, by excluding certain categories of the population, shopping malls in the Gulf allow the rest of the residents, migrants and citizens alike, to perform certain forms of “consumer cosmopolitanism” whose practices and meanings go beyond mere consumption (Riefler 2015). Malls thus appear as representative of the specific type of segregated cosmopolitanism at play in the public spaces of Gulf
well-integrated citizen of Jeddah, he works as a doorman at a private folklore museum in the city center. His comments on the artifacts exposed in the museum showed his knowledge and fondness for Hijazi folk culture. When asked if he wore the Saudi attire for his work, he responded that it was clearly important to look Saudi but that he also wore the outfit at home. He underlined the closeness of Southwestern Arabian traditions with those of eastern Eritrea and Sudan, claiming that it was only natural that he should fit in and dress like a Hejazi. In Jeddah, other Yemeni, Sudanese and Ethiopian interviewees also confirmed that they regularly wore the *thob*, especially for Friday prayers at the mosque or when meeting friends in public.

In the UAE, while foreigners wearing the national dress is generally frowned upon, similar practices exist among young adults who attended public schools, where a majority of pupils are Emirati citizens. Many young Arab men met in Abu Dhabi – of Egyptian, Palestinian, Syrian or Iraqi origin – had attended these schools and kept close friendship ties with Emirati classmates. They thus tended to wear the *dishdasha* in social outings with their Emirati friends, as did young women with the ‘*abâya* when invited to Emirati weddings. Outside of these social settings, however, the majority of the foreign youths tend to adopt dress codes that neutralize the signs of national or ethnic status, such as jeans, t-shirts and sneakers – while following more generational norms of taste and trend. These outfits are also at times adopted by Emirati youths, as a way to blend in with the diverse population of Emirati cities. Many young citizens interviewed in Abu Dhabi explained how they sometimes decided to wear jeans instead of the national dress, and to speak English in public spaces, so that they would escape temporarily the injunctions and norms related to their national status.

These various cases reflect the nuances that already exist within the most visible modes of segregation and the possibility of negotiating belonging according to personal and incidental circumstances linked to various characteristics of the individual migrant but also the duration of presence in the city, cultural capital and social networks.

## 12.3 Segregated Cosmopolitanisms in Shopping Malls

Shopping malls are symbolic of the large-scale projects that illustrate the economic diversification of Gulf economies in the early 2000s. While these spaces have often been studied as icons of modernity standardizing consumer culture and identity (Zukin 1998), an extensive body of scholarship looks at malls as examples of the variety of urban contexts and cultures (Abaza 2001; Assaf and Camelin 2017). We argue here that, by excluding certain categories of the population, shopping malls in the Gulf allow the rest of the residents, migrants and citizens alike, to perform certain forms of “consumer cosmopolitanism” whose practices and meanings go beyond mere consumption (Riefler 2015). Malls thus appear as representative of the specific type of segregated cosmopolitanism at play in the public spaces of Gulf
cities: our research suggests, indeed, that while shopping malls offer a place where hierarchies of nationality, gender and class are certainly enforced, they also represent venues for cosmopolitan interactions and encounters, either through consumerist practices or simply taking a stroll.

While Gulf urbanism is largely car-oriented with high temperatures especially in the summer, shopping malls constitute in many ways a public space by default. They have often been described as a “semi-public” space (Le Renard 2014) to underline, on the one hand, their private ownership and restricted access enforced by security guards. On the other hand, the variety of possible uses of these places and the heterogeneity of populations who frequent them assimilates them to socio-logical definitions of urban public space (Sennett 1992).

Access to the mall varies according to perceived categories of customers, and is based on intersectional hierarchies, crossing nationality with age, gender, race, and class. The moral geography of stratified spaces of social interaction also varies across the different days of the week (weekend or working days), hours of the day, and according to specific sites. In particular, whether through explicit selection or implicit exclusion, the access to shopping malls in both countries tends to be restricted for lower-class men. In Saudi Arabia, “bachelors” – migrant men- and young single Saudi men are explicitly barred from entering some shopping malls on week-ends as groups of young men are perceived as a potential threat to the moral order of the place. A combination of racial and class stigma also often prevents low-skilled workers or dark-skinned male immigrants to access some malls. While such rules can be officially pronounced – like the family restriction on week-ends- (on a board with the mall’s rules), others rely on *perceived* class, income and race. Access is thus restricted according to intersectional hierarchies of class, gender and race as well as nationality. As observed during fieldwork in Riyadh and Jeddah, a “well-dressed” Indian couple or family or a group of Filipino women is more likely to enter a mall than a group of young Saudi men dressed in poor quality *thawb* or Western outfits. In the UAE, while no explicit policy officially bans single men from entering malls, such restrictions are occasionally implemented. In 2009, a few months after Al Bawadi mall opened in Al-Ain, the second largest city in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, access to laborers was prohibited because women visitors complained about “stares.” This policy was then justified on the basis that these workers did not wear “appropriate clothing” or display “appropriate behavior” in the mall – they were, for example, sleeping on benches (Al Ghalib 2009; Assaf 2017b). At the same time, shopping malls in the UAE are probably one of the most diverse public spaces – where one can encounter both wealthy patrons buying expensive jewellery in the upscale galleries, middle class families shopping for clothes or groceries, or low-skilled employees such as nannies gathering in the food courts during their day off.

The ordinary practices of mall visitors and their social and cultural consequences can disrupt at times the social and spatial segregations at play in Gulf cities. Indeed, malls in the Gulf cannot simply be considered as places of consumption: regular shopping tends to occur mainly in supermarkets and popular markets (*suq sha'bî*).
cities: our research suggests, indeed, that while shopping malls offer a place where hierarchies of nationality, gender and class are certainly enforced, they also represent venues for cosmopolitan interactions and encounters, either through consumerist practices or simply taking a stroll.

While Gulf urbanism is largely car-oriented with high temperatures especially in the summer, shopping malls constitute in many ways a public space by default. They have often been described as a “semi-public” space (Le Renard 2014) to underline, on the one hand, their private ownership and restricted access enforced by security guards. On the other hand, the variety of possible uses of these places and the heterogeneity of populations who frequent them assimilates them to socio-logical definitions of urban public space (Sennett 1992).

Access to the mall varies according to perceived categories of customers, and is based on intersectional hierarchies, crossing nationality with age, gender, race, and class. The moral geography of stratified spaces of social interaction also varies across the different days of the week (weekend or working days), hours of the day, and according to specific sites. In particular, whether through explicit selection or implicit exclusion, the access to shopping malls in both countries tends to be restricted for lower-class men. In Saudi Arabia, “bachelors” – migrant men- and young single Saudi men are explicitly barred from entering some shopping malls on week-ends as groups of young men are perceived as a potential threat to the moral order of the place. A combination of racial and class stigma also often prevents low-skilled workers or dark-skinned male immigrants to access some malls. While such rules can be officially pronounced – like the family restriction on week-ends- (on a board with the mall’s rules), others rely on *perceived* class, income and race. Access is thus restricted according to intersectional hierarchies of class, gender and race as well as nationality. As observed during fieldwork in Riyadh and Jeddah, a “well-dressed” Indian couple or family or a group of Filipino women is more likely to enter a mall than a group of young Saudi men dressed in poor quality *thawb* or Western outfits. In the UAE, while no explicit policy officially bans single men from entering malls, such restrictions are occasionally implemented. In 2009, a few months after Al Bawadi mall opened in Al-Ain, the second largest city in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, access to laborers was prohibited because women visitors complained about “stares.” This policy was then justified on the basis that these workers did not wear “appropriate clothing” or display “appropriate behavior” in the mall – they were, for example, sleeping on benches (Al Ghalib 2009; Assaf 2017b). At the same time, shopping malls in the UAE are probably one of the most diverse public spaces – where one can encounter both wealthy patrons buying expensive jewellery in the upscale galleries, middle class families shopping for clothes or groceries, or low-skilled employees such as nannies gathering in the food courts during their day off.

The ordinary practices of mall visitors and their social and cultural consequences can disrupt at times the social and spatial segregations at play in Gulf cities. Indeed, malls in the Gulf cannot simply be considered as places of consumption: regular shopping tends to occur mainly in supermarkets and popular markets (*suq sha'bî*).
Malls rather constitute social scenes, where specific lifestyles are performed and embodied by foreigners and nationals alike.

Navigating the malls indeed implies having access to a degree of “cosmopolitan capital” (Abaza 2001; Peterson 2011). In many Gulf cities, the ethnic and national division of labor implies that one needs at least a few words of English to benefit from all the services provided by foreign, and often non-Arabic speaking, employees: this holds true from placing an order in an international coffee shop, moving around in recreational spaces or even getting one’s car repaired. This required cosmopolitan capital can thus work as a principle of exclusion for poor laborers for whom it is an additional barrier to access commercial spaces, but also for some citizens, especially those who grew up in more rural areas and did not have access to a good education in English.

Conversely, for those who master the codes and subtleties required to navigate the malls, this cosmopolitan capital becomes the basis of strategies of distinction. Such competence is associated with lifestyles and modes of consumption endowed with a global dimension. The ability to be at ease in these globalized commercial spaces appeared central to the social practices of young adults in the UAE. They took pleasure in exhibiting their familiarity with a café’s menu, their ease in ordering in English, and their cosmopolitan tastes. Embodying these consumerist lifestyles was not only a mark of distinction but a way to take part in the commodified cosmopolitanism mentioned before and, in a way, to appropriate the city’s global ambitions.

Shopping malls thus host ambivalent experiences of leisure for city-dwellers, between the exclusion of the poorer categories of the population and the inclusion of their visitors in global lifestyles that go beyond the scale of the city. Through real and symbolic social transactions, immigrants appear as part of a modernized consumer society connected to global trends but also deeply local. If malls are broader spaces of encounters on the main streets and arteries of the city where people from various neighborhoods convene, small convenience stores also function as catalysts of social interactions in the urban space. But in the perception of self and others, shopping malls have a particular function as shared “places” conveying a sense of belonging to Gulf modernity (Thiollet 2010).

## 12.4 Cosmopolitan Streets: The Moral Geography of Coexistence and Encounters

While residential segregations tend to be aligned with ethnic communities, street-level observations show how ethnic economies and in-group consumption practices are connected to the wider urban crowd and intercultural interactions. The streets of popular neighborhoods in Abu Dhabi, Riyadh or Jeddah show signs of an infinite cultural variety to the onlooker: Indonesian restaurants, Eritrean grocery stores, Chinese hardware, McDonald’s and KFC, European clothing stores and Middle
Malls rather constitute social scenes, where specific lifestyles are performed and embodied by foreigners and nationals alike.

Navigating the malls indeed implies having access to a degree of “cosmopolitan capital” (Abaza 2001; Peterson 2011). In many Gulf cities, the ethnic and national division of labor implies that one needs at least a few words of English to benefit from all the services provided by foreign, and often non-Arabic speaking, employees: this holds true from placing an order in an international coffee shop, moving around in recreational spaces or even getting one’s car repaired. This required cosmopolitan capital can thus work as a principle of exclusion for poor laborers for whom it is an additional barrier to access commercial spaces, but also for some citizens, especially those who grew up in more rural areas and did not have access to a good education in English.

Conversely, for those who master the codes and subtleties required to navigate the malls, this cosmopolitan capital becomes the basis of strategies of distinction. Such competence is associated with lifestyles and modes of consumption endowed with a global dimension. The ability to be at ease in these globalized commercial spaces appeared central to the social practices of young adults in the UAE. They took pleasure in exhibiting their familiarity with a café’s menu, their ease in ordering in English, and their cosmopolitan tastes. Embodying these consumerist lifestyles was not only a mark of distinction but a way to take part in the commodified cosmopolitanism mentioned before and, in a way, to appropriate the city’s global ambitions.

Shopping malls thus host ambivalent experiences of leisure for city-dwellers, between the exclusion of the poorer categories of the population and the inclusion of their visitors in global lifestyles that go beyond the scale of the city. Through real and symbolic social transactions, immigrants appear as part of a modernized consumer society connected to global trends but also deeply local. If malls are broader spaces of encounters on the main streets and arteries of the city where people from various neighborhoods convene, small convenience stores also function as catalysts of social interactions in the urban space. But in the perception of self and others, shopping malls have a particular function as shared “places” conveying a sense of belonging to Gulf modernity (Thiollet 2010).

## 12.4 Cosmopolitan Streets: The Moral Geography of Coexistence and Encounters

While residential segregations tend to be aligned with ethnic communities, street-level observations show how ethnic economies and in-group consumption practices are connected to the wider urban crowd and intercultural interactions. The streets of popular neighborhoods in Abu Dhabi, Riyadh or Jeddah show signs of an infinite cultural variety to the onlooker: Indonesian restaurants, Eritrean grocery stores, Chinese hardware, McDonald’s and KFC, European clothing stores and Middle
Eastern supermarket chains. Inexpensive ethnic restaurants (Chinese, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Filipino and Indian) are ubiquitous, banal and more “familiar” in working-class neighborhoods than American fast food chains. This landscape reproduces the ethnic diversity of the population. Based on our observations, the consumption practices are not strictly tied to one’s identity or the demographic composition of the surrounding area. Beyond ethnic economies and globalized cuisine (like Japanese sushi), citizens and non-citizens in Gulf cities have become familiar with the cuisines of other ethnic groups and daily consume Lebanese, Pakistani or Indian food; in many cases, the availability of these diverse cuisines stirs curiosity for others.

Although Gulf cities with their large, orthogonal avenues are mainly meant for cars, things change as soon as one enters smaller neighborhoods. In Dubai or Abu Dhabi, there is a stark contrast between the main roads with up to eight lanes of speeding traffic and the inside of neighborhood blocks where traffic grinds to a halt behind double-parked cars honking in front of a shawarma shop as children play cricket in the parking lot or football on the little square surrounding the local mosque. The experience of the urban neighborhood is often associated with that of the ethnic diversity of urban society. Just like the omnipresent *karak* (tea with milk) consumed by almost all residents and which has come to be considered an intrinsically “local” drink in the UAE despite its South Asian origin, neighborhood blocks are bustling with small shops displaying a diversity of foods and consumer goods from all over the world. Other public spaces across Abu Dhabi display similar forms of gathering, while maintaining a separation between the groups: several communities gather, cross paths or coexist without necessarily mixing (Elsheshtawy 2019). At dawn or at dusk, the ethnographer taking a stroll on the Abu Dhabi corniche or along the Al-Bateen beach can cross paths with joggers who take advantage of the fresher temperatures. They span many different age categories (between 20 and 50-years old), social classes (unlike gyms, which tend to be separated according to income), and nationalities (from North American to South Asian, Middle Eastern or European) (Assaf 2013a). The end of afternoon is also a time when picnickers start gathering along the corniche or in the public parks. Multi-generational groups of mostly Arab women meet around tea, coffee and biscuits prepared at home while young children are left to play in the playgrounds. Later on, families settle on the grass for elaborate picnics which include barbecues and narghiles. On weekends, these picnics, which in Abu Dhabi are mainly characteristic of the *ahl al-shām*, the Levantine families, often take place next to groups of Filipino friends celebrating a birthday party or other families strolling around. While these gatherings maintain a separation between the different groups, they can be considered as “intimacies in the open air” (Assaf 2013b), with each family creating its own space delimited by symbolic rather than physical boundaries. The spectacle of urban diversity thus becomes an integral part of the attraction of these spaces.

Similar distinctions can be observed in neighborhood blocks in Saudi Arabia, notably in middle and working-class neighborhoods of Um al Hamam or Ma'ather in central Riyadh where Saudis mix with various communities of migrants. Jeddah's city center (Al Balad), labelled a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 2014, is surrounded by unplanned settlements hosting middle and working-class populations of
Eastern supermarket chains. Inexpensive ethnic restaurants (Chinese, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Filipino and Indian) are ubiquitous, banal and more “familiar” in working-class neighborhoods than American fast food chains. This landscape reproduces the ethnic diversity of the population. Based on our observations, the consumption practices are not strictly tied to one’s identity or the demographic composition of the surrounding area. Beyond ethnic economies and globalized cuisine (like Japanese sushi), citizens and non-citizens in Gulf cities have become familiar with the cuisines of other ethnic groups and daily consume Lebanese, Pakistani or Indian food; in many cases, the availability of these diverse cuisines stirs curiosity for others.

Although Gulf cities with their large, orthogonal avenues are mainly meant for cars, things change as soon as one enters smaller neighborhoods. In Dubai or Abu Dhabi, there is a stark contrast between the main roads with up to eight lanes of speeding traffic and the inside of neighborhood blocks where traffic grinds to a halt behind double-parked cars honking in front of a shawarma shop as children play cricket in the parking lot or football on the little square surrounding the local mosque. The experience of the urban neighborhood is often associated with that of the ethnic diversity of urban society. Just like the omnipresent *karak* (tea with milk) consumed by almost all residents and which has come to be considered an intrinsically “local” drink in the UAE despite its South Asian origin, neighborhood blocks are bustling with small shops displaying a diversity of foods and consumer goods from all over the world. Other public spaces across Abu Dhabi display similar forms of gathering, while maintaining a separation between the groups: several communities gather, cross paths or coexist without necessarily mixing (Elsheshtawy 2019). At dawn or at dusk, the ethnographer taking a stroll on the Abu Dhabi corniche or along the Al-Bateen beach can cross paths with joggers who take advantage of the fresher temperatures. They span many different age categories (between 20 and 50-years old), social classes (unlike gyms, which tend to be separated according to income), and nationalities (from North American to South Asian, Middle Eastern or European) (Assaf 2013a). The end of afternoon is also a time when picnickers start gathering along the corniche or in the public parks. Multi-generational groups of mostly Arab women meet around tea, coffee and biscuits prepared at home while young children are left to play in the playgrounds. Later on, families settle on the grass for elaborate picnics which include barbecues and narghiles. On weekends, these picnics, which in Abu Dhabi are mainly characteristic of the *ahl al-shām*, the Levantine families, often take place next to groups of Filipino friends celebrating a birthday party or other families strolling around. While these gatherings maintain a separation between the different groups, they can be considered as “intimacies in the open air” (Assaf 2013b), with each family creating its own space delimited by symbolic rather than physical boundaries. The spectacle of urban diversity thus becomes an integral part of the attraction of these spaces.

Similar distinctions can be observed in neighborhood blocks in Saudi Arabia, notably in middle and working-class neighborhoods of Um al Hamam or Ma'ather in central Riyadh where Saudis mix with various communities of migrants. Jeddah's city center (Al Balad), labelled a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 2014, is surrounded by unplanned settlements hosting middle and working-class populations of
Saudi internal migrants and foreign residents from extremely diverse backgrounds, with a large Yemeni community. In Jeddah, the corniche is also a site of social encounters. Families walk after dinner on Thursdays and Fridays: kin groups or friends from middle-class migrant and non-migrant backgrounds stride the corniche eating ice creams or sweets. In Riyadh, wealthier migrant families and groups take weekend outings to historical sites and picnics in the nearby desert, whereas working class migrants remain confined to their neighborhoods.

Leisure time spent in these more informal, daily spaces is cosmopolitan by nature, in the sense that it brings together the various communities which compose these urban societies while maintaining boundaries between them. Just like in shopping malls, in this case, the commonality between urban users is located at the very local scale. Incidentally, this is also the scale that is most threatened by recent urban development aiming to create more enclaves and segregation (Elsheshtawy 2019). Constraints upon these practices can be enforced by the municipal police (baladi-yya) and certainly there is some degree of social control within migrant communities and across groups. In the UAE, some of the parks and most public beaches now have a paying access, and for some of them are reserved to “families”, thus excluding lower-class foreign men who have migrated alone. In Saudi Arabia, gender segregation is strictly enforced notably due to the looming presence of the religious police: the mutawwa’in of the hay’a (“committee” in Arabic, the colloquial term for the religious police, the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice). The hay’a was empowered during a conservative turn in the 1980s and staffed with men armed with a stick who had the power to police the streets for a wide range of minor infractions. In 2016, they lost their right to directly intervene in public spaces, and new decency laws passed in 2019 transferring their policing role to public authorities. But until 2016, the hay’a functioned as a “moral militia” in urban spaces constraining individual and collective behaviors in a gendered, age-sensitive and, to a certain extent, ethnic-based way. Young girls would not dare sit outside of the “family section” of coffee places and restaurants, and young men would not dare enter the family section. This moral policing applied to both Saudi and non-Saudi youth and enforced a gendered and racialized moral urban geography. The risk of being “caught” was far greater for migrants, as it went along with the risk of deportation.

## 12.5 Conclusion

Since the 2000s, while cosmopolitan claims made their way into official rhetoric and diplomacy, Saudi Arabia and the UAE paradoxically adopted more restrictive immigration policies. In Saudi Arabia, brutal controls and mass deportations occurred (Thiollet 2019). In the UAE, policies have favored highly skilled Western migrants while many long-term foreign residents find their visas not renewed for both political and economic reasons. In both countries, increasingly securitized modes of urban governance (Lori 2011) have made communities and daily lives
Saudi internal migrants and foreign residents from extremely diverse backgrounds, with a large Yemeni community. In Jeddah, the corniche is also a site of social encounters. Families walk after dinner on Thursdays and Fridays: kin groups or friends from middle-class migrant and non-migrant backgrounds stride the corniche eating ice creams or sweets. In Riyadh, wealthier migrant families and groups take weekend outings to historical sites and picnics in the nearby desert, whereas working class migrants remain confined to their neighborhoods.

Leisure time spent in these more informal, daily spaces is cosmopolitan by nature, in the sense that it brings together the various communities which compose these urban societies while maintaining boundaries between them. Just like in shopping malls, in this case, the commonality between urban users is located at the very local scale. Incidentally, this is also the scale that is most threatened by recent urban development aiming to create more enclaves and segregation (Elsheshtawy 2019). Constraints upon these practices can be enforced by the municipal police (baladi-yya) and certainly there is some degree of social control within migrant communities and across groups. In the UAE, some of the parks and most public beaches now have a paying access, and for some of them are reserved to “families”, thus excluding lower-class foreign men who have migrated alone. In Saudi Arabia, gender segregation is strictly enforced notably due to the looming presence of the religious police: the mutawwa’in of the hay’a (“committee” in Arabic, the colloquial term for the religious police, the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice). The hay’a was empowered during a conservative turn in the 1980s and staffed with men armed with a stick who had the power to police the streets for a wide range of minor infractions. In 2016, they lost their right to directly intervene in public spaces, and new decency laws passed in 2019 transferring their policing role to public authorities. But until 2016, the hay’a functioned as a “moral militia” in urban spaces constraining individual and collective behaviors in a gendered, age-sensitive and, to a certain extent, ethnic-based way. Young girls would not dare sit outside of the “family section” of coffee places and restaurants, and young men would not dare enter the family section. This moral policing applied to both Saudi and non-Saudi youth and enforced a gendered and racialized moral urban geography. The risk of being “caught” was far greater for migrants, as it went along with the risk of deportation.

## 12.5 Conclusion

Since the 2000s, while cosmopolitan claims made their way into official rhetoric and diplomacy, Saudi Arabia and the UAE paradoxically adopted more restrictive immigration policies. In Saudi Arabia, brutal controls and mass deportations occurred (Thiollet 2019). In the UAE, policies have favored highly skilled Western migrants while many long-term foreign residents find their visas not renewed for both political and economic reasons. In both countries, increasingly securitized modes of urban governance (Lori 2011) have made communities and daily lives
more fragile for the low-skilled working classes. While laws preventing the long-
term settlement of immigrants are more strictly enforced, wealthier expatriates get
access to long-term residency rights, mimicking the global divide in access to resi-
dency that can be seen in Western contexts (Shachar and Hirschl 2014).

Cosmopolitanism in denial and the paradoxes of cosmopolitan practices observed in Gulf cities are distinct from mainstream understandings of cosmopolitanism in the West as a “willingness to become involved with the Other, and the concern with achieving competence in cultures” (Hannerz 1990, 239). Cosmopolitan moments and places studied in this chapter are more fragile but not intrinsically opposed to those studied in liberal contexts. As Elijah Anderson (2011) observed in the case of a marketplace in Philadelphia, some places offer temporary enclaves for civility in urban contexts otherwise highly segregated according to class, gender and racial hierarchies. These “cosmopolitan canopies” make way for pacified interactions and encounters between groups that are usually defiant of each other, or whose relationships can be marked by conflict and violence in other contexts. Anderson is careful to underline that the cosmopolitan canopy only operates temporarily, for limited moments; and his proposition has been criticized for referring to elite commercial spaces. But these moments of conviviality are an integral part of city-dwellers’ experiences, and influence their subjectivities and their aspirations. They seem all the more important to highlight in Gulf cities as research on the Gulf has mostly studied the impact of *emigration* on sending countries, while the impact of *immigration* in Gulf contexts needs to be further documented. As such, it can inform broader discussions on migration and diversity as a vector of social change in host countries (Castles 2001; Portes 2010; Vertovec 2007). It finally amounts to mainstreaming the Gulf in the discussion on “varieties of cosmopolitanisms,” to borrow a phrase about capitalism (Hall and Soskice 2001), and considering the importance of ongoing changes despite the difficulty of fully capturing them.

References

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Akinci, I. (2019). Dressing the nation? Symbolizing Emirati national identity and boundaries through national dress. *Ethnic and Racial Studies*, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2019.1665697.

Al Ghalib E. (2009, July 7). Mall bans labourers on evenings and weekends. *The National*. https://www.thenational.ae/uae/mall-bans-labourers-onevenings-and-weekends-1.486880.

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more fragile for the low-skilled working classes. While laws preventing the long-
term settlement of immigrants are more strictly enforced, wealthier expatriates get
access to long-term residency rights, mimicking the global divide in access to resi-
dency that can be seen in Western contexts (Shachar and Hirschl 2014).

Cosmopolitanism in denial and the paradoxes of cosmopolitan practices observed in Gulf cities are distinct from mainstream understandings of cosmopolitanism in the West as a “willingness to become involved with the Other, and the concern with achieving competence in cultures” (Hannerz 1990, 239). Cosmopolitan moments and places studied in this chapter are more fragile but not intrinsically opposed to those studied in liberal contexts. As Elijah Anderson (2011) observed in the case of a marketplace in Philadelphia, some places offer temporary enclaves for civility in urban contexts otherwise highly segregated according to class, gender and racial hierarchies. These “cosmopolitan canopies” make way for pacified interactions and encounters between groups that are usually defiant of each other, or whose relationships can be marked by conflict and violence in other contexts. Anderson is careful to underline that the cosmopolitan canopy only operates temporarily, for limited moments; and his proposition has been criticized for referring to elite commercial spaces. But these moments of conviviality are an integral part of city-dwellers’ experiences, and influence their subjectivities and their aspirations. They seem all the more important to highlight in Gulf cities as research on the Gulf has mostly studied the impact of *emigration* on sending countries, while the impact of *immigration* in Gulf contexts needs to be further documented. As such, it can inform broader discussions on migration and diversity as a vector of social change in host countries (Castles 2001; Portes 2010; Vertovec 2007). It finally amounts to mainstreaming the Gulf in the discussion on “varieties of cosmopolitanisms,” to borrow a phrase about capitalism (Hall and Soskice 2001), and considering the importance of ongoing changes despite the difficulty of fully capturing them.

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**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

<figure><img src="image_35.png" /></figure>
displacement and development in the MENA region, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter.

United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. (2017). *International migration report 2017*. ST/ESA/SER.A/403. New York: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/publications/migrationreport/docs/MigrationReport2017.pdf

Vertovec, S. (2007). Super-diversity and its implications. *Ethnic and Racial Studies, 30*(6), 1024–1054. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870701599465.

Vora, N. (2013). *Impossible citizens: Dubai's Indian diaspora*. Durham/London: Duke University Press.

Walsh, K. (2014). Placing transnational migrants through comparative research: British migrant belonging in five GCC cities: Placing transnational migrants through comparative research. *Population, Space and Place, 20*(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1002/psp.1798.

Werbner, P. (1999). Global pathways. Working class cosmopolitans and the creation of trans-national ethnic worlds. *Social Anthropology, 7*(1), 17–35. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8676.1999.tb00176.x.

Yamani, M. (2009). *Cradle of Islam: The Hijaz and the quest for identity in Saudi Arabia*. London: I.B.Tauris.

Zeng, M. (2014). Subaltern cosmopolitanism: Concept and approaches. *The Sociological Review, 62*(1), 137–148. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-954X.12137.

Zukin, S. (1998). Urban lifestyles: Diversity and standardisation in spaces of consumption. *Urban Studies, 35*(5–6), 825–839. https://doi.org/10.1080/0042098984574.

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

<figure><img src="image_35.png" /></figure>
Chapter 13

# Figures of the Cosmopolitan Condition:
The Wanderer, the Outcast, the Foreigner

<figure><img src="image_36.png" /></figure>

Check for
updates

Michel Agier

**13.1 Introduction**

Ethnographies of globalization and borderlands have led me to rethink the cosmopolitan condition through various figures of “border dwellers.” These are the *wanderer*, the outcast or the *pariah*, the *foreigner* or “métèque” <fnref n="1" /> and the one philosopher Michel Serres, in his meditation on learning and difference, calls the “*tiers instruit*” (Serres 1994, 1998). I will describe each figure by relating their social condition and their story to the places where they are found. Beyond each particular case, the stories of borderlands dwellers fuel the hypothesis of a wide “borderscape” that can be located anywhere inside the city, as much as “on” the border or in camps. <fnref n="2" />

The *wanderers* in this chapter are African or Afghan, seeking somewhere around the Mediterranean an entry into Europe; the borders are the desert, the sea and the ports, where they are sometimes found in makeshift encampments.

The figure of the *pariah* is associated with the site of the camp that works as a border. Different places – encampments, squats, camps – are perceived to be

<footnote n="1">¹ The French term “métèque,” translated here by alien, refers to the foreigner in ancient Greece with specific but limited residence rights (the “metic” [μέτοικος]) but also has a derogatory meaning in French, a wog. (note of the editor)</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²On these “border landscapes” or “borderscapes,” see Puig and Bontemps 2014; Wilson and Donnan 2012. (Puig and Bontemps 2014; Wilson and Donnan 2012)</footnote>

<footnote>This chapter is partly adapted from Chapter 3 (“Border Dwellers and Borderlands: Studies of Banal Cosmopolitanism”) of my book *Borderlands: Towards an Anthropology of the Cosmopolitan Condition* (Cambridge: Polity, 2016) with the help of Hélène Thiollet.</footnote>

<footnote>M. Agier (✉)</footnote>

<footnote>CEMS, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, IC Migrations, Paris, France
e-mail: agier@ehess.fr</footnote>
Chapter 13

Figures of the Cosmopolitan Condition:
The Wanderer, the Outcast, the Foreigner

<figure><img src="image_36.png" /></figure>

Check for
updates

Michel Agier

**13.1 Introduction**

Ethnographies of globalization and borderlands have led me to rethink the cosmo-
politan condition through various figures of “border dwellers.” These are the wan-
derer, the outcast or the pariah, the foreigner or “métèque” <fnref n="1" /> and the one philosopher
Michel Serres, in his meditation on learning and difference, calls the “tiers instruit”
(Serres 1994, 1998). I will describe each figure by relating their social condition and
their story to the places where they are found. Beyond each particular case, the sto-
ries of borderlands dwellers fuel the hypothesis of a wide “borderscape” that can be
located anywhere inside the city, as much as “on” the border or in camps. <fnref n="2" />

The *wanderers* in this chapter are African or Afghan, seeking somewhere around the Mediterranean an entry into Europe; the borders are the desert, the sea and the ports, where they are sometimes found in makeshift encampments.

The figure of the *pariah* is associated with the site of the camp that works as a border. Different places – encampments, squats, camps – are perceived to be

<footnote n="1">¹ The French term “métèque,” translated here by alien, refers to the foreigner in ancient Greece with specific but limited residence rights (the “metic” [μέτοικος]) but also has a derogatory meaning in French, a wog. (note of the editor)</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²On these “border landscapes” or “borderscapes,” see Puig and Bontemps 2014; Wilson and Donnan 2012. (Puig and Bontemps 2014; Wilson and Donnan 2012)</footnote>

<footnote>This chapter is partly adapted from Chapter 3 (“Border Dwellers and Borderlands: Studies of Banal Cosmopolitanism”) of my book *Borderlands: Towards an Anthropology of the Cosmopolitan Condition* (Cambridge: Polity, 2016) with the help of Hélène Thiollet.</footnote>

<footnote>M. Agier (✉)</footnote>

<footnote>CEMS, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales and Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, IC Migrations, Paris, France
e-mail: agier@ehess.fr</footnote>
temporary or precarious settlements even though they represent a form of stability in border situations.

For the Sudanese, Eritrean or Sri Lankan *aliens* working without documents in Beirut, the whole city is a border. They logically find their place in clandestine occupations; squatted buildings can then become their regular place of existence.

And finally, the *tiers instruit* relates to the historical figure of the educated refugee (a scholar) from Europe to the United States in the mid-twentieth century. This allows for a reflection on education as a vector of hybrid identity.

In each of these situations, individuals discover their relative foreignness in the gaze of others. These “others” consist not only of those who live in the cities to which they themselves have only limited access but also those who live in the same borderlands.<fnref n="3" /> From this experience each takes a certain distance from their own supposedly “original” identity and gains a certain comprehension of the “global.” The exploration of borderlands and their inhabitants leads to investigating the existence of everyday or ordinary cosmopolitanism in specific sites.

## 13.2 Wandering as Adventure and Border Encampment

Let us start with Mamadou, a so-called *sans-papier* in Paris. He left Guinea for Dakar in 1997, at the age of seventeen, to become a bookkeeper. He wanted to study in the United States or France but did not manage to do so. Having returned to Conakry, he used a false passport to board a plane to France. Arrested and placed in the waiting zone at Roissy, he was then released by the police at midnight in the unknown city of Paris. He slept in a bus shelter, then in a squat, later in a Red Cross centre and then in a house in Nanterre (a shelter for homeless persons). Subsequently he went to Germany and Holland, looking up friends and trying to find ways of become legal. Mamadou was also travelling “to give it a try.” He arrived in Brussels, where he worked *au noir* (illegally). He also worked illegally in Paris: “It’s day to day. I wash dishes, I clean, I do deliveries, it works by contacts.” He had been back in Paris for six months when he told his story to a documentary film-making team in 2003. As he reflected: “We are in the border” (Collectif Précipité 2011).

He was then twenty-two years old, staying in the Emmaüs building on the rue des Pyrénées in the 20th arrondissement. As this “emergency shelter” was closed from eight a.m. to six-thirty p.m., it was just a place to spend the evening and sleep. It allowed for a two-week stay, renewable once. The film-makers wanted to learn the singular experiences of the shelter’s occupants that began with their departure from

<footnote n="3">³So long as a relationship is not established, it is indeterminate and imagined, abstract and absolute; then it becomes relative, in a particular situation, and the alterity that was “absolute” or “radical” (in the sense that my way of being and thinking is described by others as “radically” other) tends to reduce, if not disappear, since the discovery of singularities now becomes possible. There are different degrees of foreignness depending on the border situation and the moment in the situation.</footnote>
temporary or precarious settlements even though they represent a form of stability in border situations.

For the Sudanese, Eritrean or Sri Lankan *aliens* working without documents in Beirut, the whole city is a border. They logically find their place in clandestine occupations; squatted buildings can then become their regular place of existence.

And finally, the *tiers instruit* relates to the historical figure of the educated refugee (a scholar) from Europe to the United States in the mid-twentieth century. This allows for a reflection on education as a vector of hybrid identity.

In each of these situations, individuals discover their relative foreignness in the gaze of others. These “others” consist not only of those who live in the cities to which they themselves have only limited access but also those who live in the same borderlands.<fnref n="3" /> From this experience each takes a certain distance from their own supposedly “original” identity and gains a certain comprehension of the “global.” The exploration of borderlands and their inhabitants leads to investigating the existence of everyday or ordinary cosmopolitanism in specific sites.

## 13.2 Wandering as Adventure and Border Encampment

Let us start with Mamadou, a so-called *sans-papier* in Paris. He left Guinea for Dakar in 1997, at the age of seventeen, to become a bookkeeper. He wanted to study in the United States or France but did not manage to do so. Having returned to Conakry, he used a false passport to board a plane to France. Arrested and placed in the waiting zone at Roissy, he was then released by the police at midnight in the unknown city of Paris. He slept in a bus shelter, then in a squat, later in a Red Cross centre and then in a house in Nanterre (a shelter for homeless persons). Subsequently he went to Germany and Holland, looking up friends and trying to find ways of become legal. Mamadou was also travelling “to give it a try.” He arrived in Brussels, where he worked *au noir* (illegally). He also worked illegally in Paris: “It’s day to day. I wash dishes, I clean, I do deliveries, it works by contacts.” He had been back in Paris for six months when he told his story to a documentary film-making team in 2003. As he reflected: “We are in the border” (Collectif Précipité 2011).

He was then twenty-two years old, staying in the Emmaüs building on the rue des Pyrénées in the 20th arrondissement. As this “emergency shelter” was closed from eight a.m. to six-thirty p.m., it was just a place to spend the evening and sleep. It allowed for a two-week stay, renewable once. The film-makers wanted to learn the singular experiences of the shelter’s occupants that began with their departure from

<footnote n="3">³So long as a relationship is not established, it is indeterminate and imagined, abstract and absolute; then it becomes relative, in a particular situation, and the alterity that was “absolute” or “radical” (in the sense that my way of being and thinking is described by others as “radically” other) tends to reduce, if not disappear, since the discovery of singularities now becomes possible. There are different degrees of foreignness depending on the border situation and the moment in the situation.</footnote>
home. Their stories sketch a “subjective geography that does not coincide with state borders,” a “long wandering of body, emotions, identity.” (Collectif Précipité 2011) But these stories were also “something very concrete: the need to hide in a boat or a lorry, to be constantly changing place” (ibid.). The shelter is an extension of each person’s trajectory: “the same indefinite waiting, the same confinement, the same wandering continues in this shelter, which in the end resembles many other places where they have stopped” (ibid.). But it is also a miniature “observatory of the world.”

The vagabond or wanderer is an old figure who in other times or other places is relatively easy to conceptualize. Fairly close to the peddler or nomad, he is a foreigner who never gives up the freedom to come and go. Arriving today, he can leave tomorrow. Or he could stay. He does not have a fixed dwelling, possibly temporarily “homeless” rather than “undocumented” – which he is too, but this has relatively less importance than his mobility. The acknowledgement of his clandestine status is by chance and almost secondary.

The theoretical notion of wandering has today become something wider and more complex. It does not denote a particular person or a typological category, but rather a moment lived by many displaced persons, including those we call migrants when they cross or try to cross a national border.<fnref n="4" /> A survey of the borders around Europe gives the impression of a contemporary world made up of wandering. Starting in the east, at Patras in Greece among Afghan migrants met at crossing points on the border, wandering is the most visible way of being foreign. These people represent a new figure of the vagabond with no ‘indigeneity’ to claim; even if they have Afghan parents, most of them were born in camps in Pakistan or in Iran. Nor do they have a definite place of arrival, being in this way already more global than many adventurous lives that are proclaimed and presented as global in the discourse and branding of globalization. On the other side of the Mediterranean, in the Andalusian province of Almería, border crossing from Morocco by the strait of Gibraltar or the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla places the migrant in a situation of relative “vulnerability” and uncertainty. The moment that follows border-crossing is a time of latency and search for solutions (see Carnet 2011). Between the actual journey and the prolonged stationing at the border, a whole world of “clan-destinized” migration is formed.

Across the Mediterranean in the Moroccan city of Rabat and in the woods around Ceuta and Melilla, *foyers* (collective urban lodgings) or encampments (in the forest) have become places of social regulation, providing a certain “stability in instability” (Pian 2009). The social organization of these sites and the relationship to identities of origin (national or otherwise) are important topics for the migrants, raising practical questions that have to be resolved. Each encampment or ghetto (a term used by the migrants themselves) is a little cosmopolitan world, like the Emmaüs shelter in Paris.

<footnote n="4">⁴We should also bear in mind, so as to measure the scale of this condition, that the number of so-called “illegal” immigrants is far larger. According to the PNUD, two-thirds of the world’s population is unable to move freely (Wihtol de Wenden 2010).</footnote>
home. Their stories sketch a “subjective geography that does not coincide with state borders,” a “long wandering of body, emotions, identity.” (Collectif Précipité 2011) But these stories were also “something very concrete: the need to hide in a boat or a lorry, to be constantly changing place” (ibid.). The shelter is an extension of each person’s trajectory: “the same indefinite waiting, the same confinement, the same wandering continues in this shelter, which in the end resembles many other places where they have stopped” (ibid.). But it is also a miniature “observatory of the world.”

The vagabond or wanderer is an old figure who in other times or other places is relatively easy to conceptualize. Fairly close to the peddler or nomad, he is a foreigner who never gives up the freedom to come and go. Arriving today, he can leave tomorrow. Or he could stay. He does not have a fixed dwelling, possibly temporarily “homeless” rather than “undocumented” – which he is too, but this has relatively less importance than his mobility. The acknowledgement of his clandestine status is by chance and almost secondary.

The theoretical notion of wandering has today become something wider and more complex. It does not denote a particular person or a typological category, but rather a moment lived by many displaced persons, including those we call migrants when they cross or try to cross a national border.<fnref n="4" /> A survey of the borders around Europe gives the impression of a contemporary world made up of wandering. Starting in the east, at Patras in Greece among Afghan migrants met at crossing points on the border, wandering is the most visible way of being foreign. These people represent a new figure of the vagabond with no ‘indigeneity’ to claim; even if they have Afghan parents, most of them were born in camps in Pakistan or in Iran. Nor do they have a definite place of arrival, being in this way already more global than many adventurous lives that are proclaimed and presented as global in the discourse and branding of globalization. On the other side of the Mediterranean, in the Andalusian province of Almería, border crossing from Morocco by the strait of Gibraltar or the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla places the migrant in a situation of relative “vulnerability” and uncertainty. The moment that follows border-crossing is a time of latency and search for solutions (see Carnet 2011). Between the actual journey and the prolonged stationing at the border, a whole world of “clan-destinized” migration is formed.

Across the Mediterranean in the Moroccan city of Rabat and in the woods around Ceuta and Melilla, *foyers* (collective urban lodgings) or encampments (in the forest) have become places of social regulation, providing a certain “stability in instability” (Pian 2009). The social organization of these sites and the relationship to identities of origin (national or otherwise) are important topics for the migrants, raising practical questions that have to be resolved. Each encampment or ghetto (a term used by the migrants themselves) is a little cosmopolitan world, like the Emmaüs shelter in Paris.

<footnote n="4">⁴We should also bear in mind, so as to measure the scale of this condition, that the number of so-called “illegal” immigrants is far larger. According to the PNUD, two-thirds of the world’s population is unable to move freely (Wihtol de Wenden 2010).</footnote>
In the Sahara a bit further east, the trajectories of migrants who cross from Niger to Libya or Algeria forms what Julien Brachet calls a “delocalized territory” (Brachet 2009; Streiff-Fenart and Kabwe-Segatti 2012). A mode of existence (and waiting) is stabilized in the Dirkou oasis, which serves as a regional transit center, and in the lorries crossing the desert in which communities are formed. According to Brachet, a “real migratory field” from the Sahel to Africa’s Mediterranean shores shapes up along these networks and routes, giving rise to a “cosmopolitan desert” (Brachet 2009, 285). These migrants show little *a priori* interest in the transit region or its population; they stay in ghettoes (as the migrants put it), where they rub shoulders with migrants expelled from Algeria and prepare to attempt new migrations.

Whether in Africa, America or Asia, wanderers are never sure of reaching the end of the journey they have embarked upon, which is reconfigured as an ‘adventure’ in their imagination. Of course, the imaginary of the “adventurer” (see the Chap. 4 by Fouquet in this book) cannot be separated from the conditions in which, against the background of deeply inegalitarian North-South relations, the clandestine migrant seeks to control his or her wandering. Desires or strategies are interrupted, diverted, constantly reformulated. In the attempt to provide control that characterizes the adventurer lies the energy of men and women who cannot say exactly where their journey will lead them but who adapt to this wandering by making it the context of their social organization and subjectivity. What we have here is *une pensée du movement* – a way to think mobility and to think on the move. This helps people imagine the possibility of going forward in a completely hostile context. “At the moment, I’m not living,” says Mamadou in the Emmaüs shelter. “I’m blocked at this point, and time is getting on for me. The battle I’ve started is sleeping but not dead… At this point I’m in a weak position, I’m retreating. As soon as I have the strength, I’ll be able to continue” (Collectif Précipité 2011) Everything indicates that adventure is one of the languages of uncertainty, giving the wandering subject the capacity to think about their life project and to act in dangerous contexts. The transit country and border spaces become in-between spaces, places for adventurers. Wanderers find it hard to leave these spaces as the perspective of the journey remains present so long as they remain in this place, on the border.

Between 1997 and 2009, the Patras encampment in Greece was home to between 500 and 2000 persons. The Calais encampment in France on the shore of the Channel existed from 2002 to 2009 and sometimes sheltered up to 600 people. Other encampments have developed in major “bottlenecks” close to borders, such as those in the woods around the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in northern Morocco or along the border separating Mexico from the United States (Agier and Prestianni 2011).

When new migrants arrive at Patras, they first go to the squat buildings along the huts of the Afghan encampment (a few years ago, Kurds were living there). They look for a room in the shelters and if one is not available, or if there are new arrivals, the migrants build a house. When Yassir, an Afghan Hazara, arrived, he found someone who came from his “hometown” – a town in Pakistan, actually. This person invited Yassir to share his room. A fellow Hazara from the same town in Pakistan was welcomed to share the room a few months later. Despite not knowing one
In the Sahara a bit further east, the trajectories of migrants who cross from Niger to Libya or Algeria forms what Julien Brachet calls a “delocalized territory” (Brachet 2009; Streiff-Fenart and Kabwe-Segatti 2012). A mode of existence (and waiting) is stabilized in the Dirkou oasis, which serves as a regional transit center, and in the lorries crossing the desert in which communities are formed. According to Brachet, a “real migratory field” from the Sahel to Africa’s Mediterranean shores shapes up along these networks and routes, giving rise to a “cosmopolitan desert” (Brachet 2009, 285). These migrants show little *a priori* interest in the transit region or its population; they stay in ghettoes (as the migrants put it), where they rub shoulders with migrants expelled from Algeria and prepare to attempt new migrations.

Whether in Africa, America or Asia, wanderers are never sure of reaching the end of the journey they have embarked upon, which is reconfigured as an ‘adventure’ in their imagination. Of course, the imaginary of the “adventurer” (see the Chap. 4 by Fouquet in this book) cannot be separated from the conditions in which, against the background of deeply inegalitarian North-South relations, the clandestine migrant seeks to control his or her wandering. Desires or strategies are interrupted, diverted, constantly reformulated. In the attempt to provide control that characterizes the adventurer lies the energy of men and women who cannot say exactly where their journey will lead them but who adapt to this wandering by making it the context of their social organization and subjectivity. What we have here is *une pensée du movement* – a way to think mobility and to think on the move. This helps people imagine the possibility of going forward in a completely hostile context. “At the moment, I’m not living,” says Mamadou in the Emmaüs shelter. “I’m blocked at this point, and time is getting on for me. The battle I’ve started is sleeping but not dead… At this point I’m in a weak position, I’m retreating. As soon as I have the strength, I’ll be able to continue” (Collectif Précipité 2011) Everything indicates that adventure is one of the languages of uncertainty, giving the wandering subject the capacity to think about their life project and to act in dangerous contexts. The transit country and border spaces become in-between spaces, places for adventurers. Wanderers find it hard to leave these spaces as the perspective of the journey remains present so long as they remain in this place, on the border.

Between 1997 and 2009, the Patras encampment in Greece was home to between 500 and 2000 persons. The Calais encampment in France on the shore of the Channel existed from 2002 to 2009 and sometimes sheltered up to 600 people. Other encampments have developed in major “bottlenecks” close to borders, such as those in the woods around the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in northern Morocco or along the border separating Mexico from the United States (Agier and Prestianni 2011).

When new migrants arrive at Patras, they first go to the squat buildings along the huts of the Afghan encampment (a few years ago, Kurds were living there). They look for a room in the shelters and if one is not available, or if there are new arrivals, the migrants build a house. When Yassir, an Afghan Hazara, arrived, he found someone who came from his “hometown” – a town in Pakistan, actually. This person invited Yassir to share his room. A fellow Hazara from the same town in Pakistan was welcomed to share the room a few months later. Despite not knowing one
another, they have people in common, “so I said to him, ‘Come here!’” (Agier and Prestianni 2011, 39).

Mahmoud is presented as the “leader” of the encampment. He is a social worker by training, but here in the migrant community he moves between Patras and Athens. He keeps one of the encampment’s small shops. “Patras is an outlaw town,” he says (Agier and Prestianni 2011, 45).

After twelve years of existence, the Patras encampment has become a fixed point on migration routes. Patras is known to all those who take these routes. Like Zahedan (on the border between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan) or Calais, these places have become cosmopolitan crossroads of a peculiar kind: they are staging posts on a worldwide journey, one that is always risky and unpredictable, which runs from Afghanistan (or Pakistan, or Iran) to Europe. The boundaries of exile constantly change for African, Middle Eastern and Asian exiles who head for Europe as well for South and Central Americans heading towards the U.S. or Canada.

## 13.3 Becoming a Pariah: The Experience of Refugee Camps

Let us turn to Bobo N'K, a refugee from Liberia. He was twenty-nine when I met him in the Boreah refugee camp in Guinea in 2003. He had two children with him, aged seven and nine. His wife fell ill after the birth in 1996 of their second child in the refugee camp of Jui in Sierra Leone and subsequently died. He also had with him three younger brothers (who went to school in the Boreah camp) and a sister with two children of her own. Bobo managed to sustain this family of nine through the “incentive” from the Belgian section of Médecins Sans Frontières (he worked to register sick people who came to the camp’s clinic) and thanks to the rations provided by the World Food Programme.<fnref n="5" /> One day in September 1990, he explains, “at four in the morning, the forces of Charles Taylor’s NPFL [National Patriotic Front of Liberia] arrived in the town; they dug in there, people heard gunfire and fled.” Between surprise attacks by the Liberian army or the rebel forces, then from the Sierra Leonean army, violence and arrests in Guinea, crossing the forests, and several times the borders of all three countries (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea), he went through a whole network of camps, becoming so used to them that they became part of his ordinary life. After twelve years of this rather peculiar wandering, both controlled and forced, Boreah was the ninth camp in which he had lived.<fnref n="6" />

Bobo is very nervous and has difficulty continuing a long conversation, a difficulty that is expressed by nervous tics, disturbed looks, hands that hide his face or rub it vigorously, as if he were washing himself after every sentence. He fears for his safety. Like several hundred other people living in this camp, he has made a

<footnote n="5">⁵Refugees are not allowed otherwise to work in the host country.</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶This story and that of other refugee itineraries is presented and analyzed at greater length in Agier 2011, 87–115.</footnote>
another, they have people in common, “so I said to him, ‘Come here!’” (Agier and Prestianni 2011, 39).

Mahmoud is presented as the “leader” of the encampment. He is a social worker by training, but here in the migrant community he moves between Patras and Athens. He keeps one of the encampment’s small shops. “Patras is an outlaw town,” he says (Agier and Prestianni 2011, 45).

After twelve years of existence, the Patras encampment has become a fixed point on migration routes. Patras is known to all those who take these routes. Like Zahedan (on the border between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan) or Calais, these places have become cosmopolitan crossroads of a peculiar kind: they are staging posts on a worldwide journey, one that is always risky and unpredictable, which runs from Afghanistan (or Pakistan, or Iran) to Europe. The boundaries of exile constantly change for African, Middle Eastern and Asian exiles who head for Europe as well for South and Central Americans heading towards the U.S. or Canada.

## 13.3 Becoming a Pariah: The Experience of Refugee Camps

Let us turn to Bobo N'K, a refugee from Liberia. He was twenty-nine when I met him in the Boreah refugee camp in Guinea in 2003. He had two children with him, aged seven and nine. His wife fell ill after the birth in 1996 of their second child in the refugee camp of Jui in Sierra Leone and subsequently died. He also had with him three younger brothers (who went to school in the Boreah camp) and a sister with two children of her own. Bobo managed to sustain this family of nine through the “incentive” from the Belgian section of Médecins Sans Frontières (he worked to register sick people who came to the camp’s clinic) and thanks to the rations provided by the World Food Programme.<fnref n="5" /> One day in September 1990, he explains, “at four in the morning, the forces of Charles Taylor’s NPFL [National Patriotic Front of Liberia] arrived in the town; they dug in there, people heard gunfire and fled.” Between surprise attacks by the Liberian army or the rebel forces, then from the Sierra Leonean army, violence and arrests in Guinea, crossing the forests, and several times the borders of all three countries (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea), he went through a whole network of camps, becoming so used to them that they became part of his ordinary life. After twelve years of this rather peculiar wandering, both controlled and forced, Boreah was the ninth camp in which he had lived.<fnref n="6" />

Bobo is very nervous and has difficulty continuing a long conversation, a difficulty that is expressed by nervous tics, disturbed looks, hands that hide his face or rub it vigorously, as if he were washing himself after every sentence. He fears for his safety. Like several hundred other people living in this camp, he has made a

<footnote n="5">⁵Refugees are not allowed otherwise to work in the host country.</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶This story and that of other refugee itineraries is presented and analyzed at greater length in Agier 2011, 87–115.</footnote>
request to the UN High Commission for Refugees for “resettlement in a third country.”<fnref n="7" /> But the UNHCR agent told him that he had to produce a “recommendation” from a humanitarian NGO. This strategy aims to discharge the UN agency from the responsibility of screening thousands of refugees to select the more “deserving,” the more vulnerable, pushing the victimization of refugee identity to a paroxysm. These unfortunate lucky ones would then be able to leave the camps for another life that many still idealize, free and in peace in the “First World.” The delinquation of screening to humanitarian NGOs enhances the victimization of refugees and leads international organisations and refugees themselves to perceive their lives in the camp as extraterritorial and undesirable.

Not all the refugees live in camps, but the camp is today the ideal-typical figure of distancing. A total of some 75 million people across the world find themselves in a situation of so-called “forced displacement” – refugees, internally displaced, displacement by natural disasters. 15.9 million refugees (representing 78 per cent of all refugees in 2018) are in protracted situations. They spend protracted time in places separated off – camps, encampments, detention centres, waiting zones or zones of temporary reception. In other people’s eyes their radical foreignness is not a function of their nationality or ethnic identity; rather, it is a product of their refugee status, their statelessness and the place they live in. The absence of rights and distancing from the human community casts them into the ‘human superfluity’ described by Hannah Arendt. With encampment, whether temporary or durable, the distancing characterizes the condition of the foreigner as pariah. Extraterritoriality is the first illusion of this type of foreigner: what grounds his radical foreignness is a biopolitical alterity, produced by the technical and spatial government of migrants and refugees as a separate category of population. Walls and barriers increasingly hard to cross impose radical otherness. Such otherness is primary manifested in relational terms, rather than cultural differences which are not always experienced concretely. The “pariah” is voiceless and faceless from the standpoint of otherness. How can I get on (or not) with an Afghan migrant if he is placed in a detention center? How can I know whether Bobo N’K is Malinké or Mendé, and in what way this is important or not for him, if he remains inaccessible to me, “enclosed outside” for years?

The experience of encampment (whether extended or not) brings about a rapid cultural change for those who live through it due to the contact made with refugees from other regions or countries. Such meetings would not have been possible without this particular violence. There is also contact with a humanitarian system that is both global and localized. Some refugees learn other languages (including basic international English) and other ways of life, whether in terms of clothes or food. Above all, they learn to “get by” and survive in the humanitarian system: to register multiple times with different administrations to get bigger plots to settle, to duplicate residency (in camp and town), to work informally, to buy (or resale)

<footnote n="7">⁷The United States, Australia and northern Europe are the main destinations of these UNHCR resettlements.</footnote>
request to the UN High Commission for Refugees for “resettlement in a third country.”<fnref n="7" /> But the UNHCR agent told him that he had to produce a “recommendation” from a humanitarian NGO. This strategy aims to discharge the UN agency from the responsibility of screening thousands of refugees to select the more “deserving,” the more vulnerable, pushing the victimization of refugee identity to a paroxysm. These unfortunate lucky ones would then be able to leave the camps for another life that many still idealize, free and in peace in the “First World.” The delinquation of screening to humanitarian NGOs enhances the victimization of refugees and leads international organisations and refugees themselves to perceive their lives in the camp as extraterritorial and undesirable.

Not all the refugees live in camps, but the camp is today the ideal-typical figure of distancing. A total of some 75 million people across the world find themselves in a situation of so-called “forced displacement” – refugees, internally displaced, displacement by natural disasters. 15.9 million refugees (representing 78 per cent of all refugees in 2018) are in protracted situations. They spend protracted time in places separated off – camps, encampments, detention centres, waiting zones or zones of temporary reception. In other people’s eyes their radical foreignness is not a function of their nationality or ethnic identity; rather, it is a product of their refugee status, their statelessness and the place they live in. The absence of rights and distancing from the human community casts them into the ‘human superfluity’ described by Hannah Arendt. With encampment, whether temporary or durable, the distancing characterizes the condition of the foreigner as pariah. Extraterritoriality is the first illusion of this type of foreigner: what grounds his radical foreignness is a biopolitical alterity, produced by the technical and spatial government of migrants and refugees as a separate category of population. Walls and barriers increasingly hard to cross impose radical otherness. Such otherness is primary manifested in relational terms, rather than cultural differences which are not always experienced concretely. The “pariah” is voiceless and faceless from the standpoint of otherness. How can I get on (or not) with an Afghan migrant if he is placed in a detention center? How can I know whether Bobo N’K is Malinké or Mendé, and in what way this is important or not for him, if he remains inaccessible to me, “enclosed outside” for years?

The experience of encampment (whether extended or not) brings about a rapid cultural change for those who live through it due to the contact made with refugees from other regions or countries. Such meetings would not have been possible without this particular violence. There is also contact with a humanitarian system that is both global and localized. Some refugees learn other languages (including basic international English) and other ways of life, whether in terms of clothes or food. Above all, they learn to “get by” and survive in the humanitarian system: to register multiple times with different administrations to get bigger plots to settle, to duplicate residency (in camp and town), to work informally, to buy (or resale)

<footnote n="7">⁷The United States, Australia and northern Europe are the main destinations of these UNHCR resettlements.</footnote>
supplementary food ration cards, etc. If the refugee camp is indeed the hardened form of a spatial and temporal “border” between citizenships and localities that have been lost and are not yet redeemed, it is also a test for a little cosmopolitan world. The encamped adapt to it, by necessity, as they are not sure of finding elsewhere such a feeling of locality and such a relation of citizenship.

## 13.4 Four Foreigners, and the Squat as Border

Let us now turn to a couple of emigrants in Beirut, Hashani and Peter, with their two small children. She is Sri Lankan, he is Sudanese. They met in Beirut in 2005 where they attended the same Catholic church, a “church for foreigners,” they told me in 2012. At certain times of day, at the morning masses for foreigners and in the afternoons for recreational activities, Sudanese, Sri Lankans and Filipinos meet up, sometimes joined by Lebanese husbands of foreign women.

Hashani arrived in Beirut in 2001 with a contract covering travel and work that an agency had provided before she left Sri Lanka. She started her job as a domestic worker for the household which the agency had set her up with as soon as she arrived. Like many foreign women in her situation, she nevertheless went a whole year without wages (to “repay the air ticket,” she was told). Like many others, also, she slept on the balcony of her employers’ apartment, with a rent deducted from her pay. As official sponsors of her stay in Lebanon, her employers had taken her passport when she arrived to make sure that she wouldn’t run away, she says; she had no other documents, not even a resident card. After two years of this “slave’s life,” as she called it, she left the household but was unable to recover her passport, the “madame” asking for $1700 for it to be returned. She now works by the hour with various part-time employers. She seems at ease, “controlling” her existence and actually receiving her wages ($4 per hour). Yet even if she has found her “freedom,” she is in a completely illegal situation.

Peter, forty years old in 2012, also arrived in Beirut in 2001. He left South Sudan at the age of seven. He went to his uncle who lived in a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) on the outskirts of Khartoum that was run by the Sudanese council of churches. Then at twenty-three he became a “volunteer teacher,” working in Khartoum from 1995 to 2000. He requested and obtained admission to a college in Romania, as well as a visa, but did not have the money for the journey. He got to Syria, where he hoped to earn enough money to be able to continue on to Romania. He worked hard as a cleaner in a restaurant but earned too little. There were many Sudanese in Syria at this time, and some were returned to Sudan. “No way out, I gave up,” he says, but in fact he did not give up completely. Ready to go anywhere, the easiest country was neighbouring Lebanon. He entered illegally, as all Sudanese from Syria do. Many Sudanese workers, from both South and North, settle in Beirut for short periods (six months or a year), often living in extremely precarious conditions (ten or twelve single men in a two-room apartment) and working as caretakers,
supplementary food ration cards, etc. If the refugee camp is indeed the hardened form of a spatial and temporal “border” between citizenships and localities that have been lost and are not yet redeemed, it is also a test for a little cosmopolitan world. The encamped adapt to it, by necessity, as they are not sure of finding elsewhere such a feeling of locality and such a relation of citizenship.

## 13.4 Four Foreigners, and the Squat as Border

Let us now turn to a couple of emigrants in Beirut, Hashani and Peter, with their two small children. She is Sri Lankan, he is Sudanese. They met in Beirut in 2005 where they attended the same Catholic church, a “church for foreigners,” they told me in 2012. At certain times of day, at the morning masses for foreigners and in the afternoons for recreational activities, Sudanese, Sri Lankans and Filipinos meet up, sometimes joined by Lebanese husbands of foreign women.

Hashani arrived in Beirut in 2001 with a contract covering travel and work that an agency had provided before she left Sri Lanka. She started her job as a domestic worker for the household which the agency had set her up with as soon as she arrived. Like many foreign women in her situation, she nevertheless went a whole year without wages (to “repay the air ticket,” she was told). Like many others, also, she slept on the balcony of her employers’ apartment, with a rent deducted from her pay. As official sponsors of her stay in Lebanon, her employers had taken her passport when she arrived to make sure that she wouldn’t run away, she says; she had no other documents, not even a resident card. After two years of this “slave’s life,” as she called it, she left the household but was unable to recover her passport, the “madame” asking for $1700 for it to be returned. She now works by the hour with various part-time employers. She seems at ease, “controlling” her existence and actually receiving her wages ($4 per hour). Yet even if she has found her “freedom,” she is in a completely illegal situation.

Peter, forty years old in 2012, also arrived in Beirut in 2001. He left South Sudan at the age of seven. He went to his uncle who lived in a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) on the outskirts of Khartoum that was run by the Sudanese council of churches. Then at twenty-three he became a “volunteer teacher,” working in Khartoum from 1995 to 2000. He requested and obtained admission to a college in Romania, as well as a visa, but did not have the money for the journey. He got to Syria, where he hoped to earn enough money to be able to continue on to Romania. He worked hard as a cleaner in a restaurant but earned too little. There were many Sudanese in Syria at this time, and some were returned to Sudan. “No way out, I gave up,” he says, but in fact he did not give up completely. Ready to go anywhere, the easiest country was neighbouring Lebanon. He entered illegally, as all Sudanese from Syria do. Many Sudanese workers, from both South and North, settle in Beirut for short periods (six months or a year), often living in extremely precarious conditions (ten or twelve single men in a two-room apartment) and working as caretakers,
garbage collectors or watchmen. Some end up remaining there, without really hav-
ing planned it.

Without documents, and thus at the mercy of his employers, Peter first worked in a petrol station, then as a hotel cleaner and for the last five years as a cleaner in a nightclub (he is paid $350 per month). Several hundred other Sudanese from Beirut (mostly from the South) have gained a relative stability in Beirut, keeping an eye on their home country. They sometimes even receive visits from relatives. But the prospect of return becomes more distant with time, just like Peter's plan to go to Romania. For Hashani, the prospect of returning to Sri Lanka also dwindles, even if return is stipulated or at least presupposed in the contracts that bring workers from Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Madagascar, Bangladesh or Ethiopia to Beirut. Acquiring residence papers is expensive, they explain. One needs to consider both the official and "unofficial" cost of regularization, which amounts to $3500 for each person plus an initial $1000 sponsorship and a further $1000 annually for a year's renewal. These amounts are not acknowledged by government administrations or NGOs but migrants know them, and the high cost dissuades them from trying to "become legal."

Peter and Hashani are among those persons referred to in Beirut as *bidoun* ("without"), a term of foreignness that denotes lack of papers but also lack of rights in general, despite the jobs they hold that make a stable existence possible. Peter is often insulted in the street because of the colour of his skin: "Black people are called *Shaytan* [Satan]," he explains, "and some people make the sign of the cross when they see us." He helps to run a Christian association of South Sudanese in Beirut, which plays an important role in assisting newcomers, establishing relations with part of the local population (religious leaders or Lebanese husbands of foreign wives), and providing some sort of space for peaceable sociability.

Through these dynamics of exclusion/inclusion, Peter and Hashani’s family left me with a nuanced impression: inclusion through work, exclusion by almost everything else; strong individualization of everyday life, occasional “communitarian” gathering on Sunday mornings. This ambiguity corresponds to another old figure of relative foreignness, that of the ancient Greek *metoikos*. These “residents without city rights” lived *in* the city, providing an indispensable subaltern labour-force (Greek democracy needed the excluded in order to subsist), but alienated from social, political and property rights. Unlike pariahs, their presence was not forbidden. Unlike slaves, they enjoyed relative liberty. But they were also, like Peter and Hashani (and their two children) in Beirut, sustainably settled in an *in-between* which they “occupy” and “inhabit” with relative success.

The squat is a characteristic form of urban residence of these illegal presences in the city, of the condition of residents without civic rights. The so-called “Gaza Hospital” squat in the Sabra district of Beirut allows us to approach this reality via two recently-arrived undocumented migrant workers. Gaza Hospital is the name of an eleven-story building in which close to 500 people live in a precarious situation. Built in the 1970s by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) when it had its headquarters in the Sabra district, the hospital was gradually abandoned after the eviction of the PLO in 1982. It was partially destroyed that same year by the Israeli army when it invaded Beirut (leading to the massacres at Sabra and Chatila). It
garbage collectors or watchmen. Some end up remaining there, without really hav-
ing planned it.

Without documents, and thus at the mercy of his employers, Peter first worked in a petrol station, then as a hotel cleaner and for the last five years as a cleaner in a nightclub (he is paid $350 per month). Several hundred other Sudanese from Beirut (mostly from the South) have gained a relative stability in Beirut, keeping an eye on their home country. They sometimes even receive visits from relatives. But the prospect of return becomes more distant with time, just like Peter's plan to go to Romania. For Hashani, the prospect of returning to Sri Lanka also dwindles, even if return is stipulated or at least presupposed in the contracts that bring workers from Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Madagascar, Bangladesh or Ethiopia to Beirut. Acquiring residence papers is expensive, they explain. One needs to consider both the official and "unofficial" cost of regularization, which amounts to $3500 for each person plus an initial $1000 sponsorship and a further $1000 annually for a year's renewal. These amounts are not acknowledged by government administrations or NGOs but migrants know them, and the high cost dissuades them from trying to "become legal."

Peter and Hashani are among those persons referred to in Beirut as *bidoun* ("without"), a term of foreignness that denotes lack of papers but also lack of rights in general, despite the jobs they hold that make a stable existence possible. Peter is often insulted in the street because of the colour of his skin: "Black people are called *Shaytan* [Satan]," he explains, "and some people make the sign of the cross when they see us." He helps to run a Christian association of South Sudanese in Beirut, which plays an important role in assisting newcomers, establishing relations with part of the local population (religious leaders or Lebanese husbands of foreign wives), and providing some sort of space for peaceable sociability.

Through these dynamics of exclusion/inclusion, Peter and Hashani’s family left me with a nuanced impression: inclusion through work, exclusion by almost everything else; strong individualization of everyday life, occasional “communitarian” gathering on Sunday mornings. This ambiguity corresponds to another old figure of relative foreignness, that of the ancient Greek *metoikos*. These “residents without city rights” lived *in* the city, providing an indispensable subaltern labour-force (Greek democracy needed the excluded in order to subsist), but alienated from social, political and property rights. Unlike pariahs, their presence was not forbidden. Unlike slaves, they enjoyed relative liberty. But they were also, like Peter and Hashani (and their two children) in Beirut, sustainably settled in an *in-between* which they “occupy” and “inhabit” with relative success.

The squat is a characteristic form of urban residence of these illegal presences in the city, of the condition of residents without civic rights. The so-called “Gaza Hospital” squat in the Sabra district of Beirut allows us to approach this reality via two recently-arrived undocumented migrant workers. Gaza Hospital is the name of an eleven-story building in which close to 500 people live in a precarious situation. Built in the 1970s by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) when it had its headquarters in the Sabra district, the hospital was gradually abandoned after the eviction of the PLO in 1982. It was partially destroyed that same year by the Israeli army when it invaded Beirut (leading to the massacres at Sabra and Chatila). It