The City-Corporation
The City-Corporation
Young Professionals and the Limits of the Neoliberal Response
This chapter discusses the identity politics adopted by several young Emiratis who are dissatisfied with the often stifling obligations presented by the “neoorthodoxy” explained in the previous chapter. These young neoliberal professionals reject the traditionalist, “modern nostalgia” espoused in neoorthodoxy, but do not, however, reject Emirati and Muslim identities. They attempt to live their identities out in a different way, by actively aligning their Emirati and neoliberal values. The latter emphasizes the individual over the community, albeit even this configuration becomes yet another vehicle supporting the interests of the Al Maktoum regime. For this generation of managers and professionals, their identities are built upon on neoliberal notions of business management, self-cultivation and regulation, and individual merit, but which also maintain some non-neoliberal social expectations, especially in matters of gender.
Keywords: neoliberal values, Al Maktoum, community, individual merit, gender, neoliberal professionals
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