The Gulf as a Global Contact Zone: Chronotopic Identities and (Linguistic) Landscapes

Abstract

The Gulf distinguishes both as a regional system in international relations and a global contact zone for the occurrence of many social issues. Migration, transformation, and urbanization emerge as the key factors for changes in the Gulf area. The concept of chronotope helps us to analyze the Gulf context and the richness of its repertoires, intended as language, cultures, activities, and identities. In fact, the multiplicity of contexts of interactions together with the actors involved gave rise to a number of landscapes inside the city, so contributing to superdiversity. This chapter attempts to analyze the phenomenon, and the reasons that led to such a reality.

1 The Birth of Gulf States: From the Collapse of the Ottoman Empire to the Independence

The sense of cohesion conveyed by the definition of the Gulf as a regional system does not exempt us, however, from analyzing separately Gulf countries through the stages of their establishment as modern states. The Arab regional system has always faced the international system of Mediterranean Europe, so it is not possible to trace the historical and social framework of the area without mentioning the colonial period, included the events occurred just before the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. In this long period of time, some main phases can be identified (Guazzone, 2016, pp. 13–16):

• the initial colonial phase, up to the First World War 1800–1920;

• the phase between the First and Second World Wars 1920–1945, with the emergence of Arab states led by local élites and backed by Europeans in anti-Ottoman fashion;

• the phase of pan-Arabism and the conquest of independence 1945–1979, with the first clear differentiation between poor Arab states and rich Arab states, due to oil resources;

• the fourth phase 1979–2015, with the alignment of Arab countries to the neoliberal dictates of Western globalization, the consequent restructuring of the Arab regional system and, subsequently, the increasing pressure of protest against old leaders, up to the Arab revolutions;

• the post-revolutionary phase, still in progress and with some social conquests, but still weak and uncertain regarding political outcomes.

The autonomous states that overlook the Gulf derive from a common path and historically, in each country, one family has prevailed over the others and has seized power. Currently, the population is mostly composed of sedentary people, settled along the coast. The notables descend from common origins: the Banu ‘Utub strain of the Aniza from the Nejd, from which the Al-Sabah of Kuwait, the Al-Khalifa of Bahrayn, and the Al-Thani of Qatar derive. The most significant historical milestones for the coastal area can be traced by following the more significant steps of the British presence: the signing of treaties, the collapse of British dominance, the withdrawal, and the proclamation of independence. In particular, it should be remembered that in between 1798 and 1820 Great Britain arrogated to itself the right to issue navigation permits and, in the absence of these, to accuse of piracy those who sailed in the area. In order not to run into this accusation, from 1820 to the end of the century, all states signed separate agreements with the British, also pledging not to interact with other external agents. The last signatory was Qatar in 1906. British hegemony weakened at the time of the discovery of oil, for which the first drilling began in the 1930s, while the crisis of 1929 was ongoing. The British, however, were able to impose themselves again, forcing the Gulf states to grant oil exploration permits to specific companies, and also granted the payment of royalties without being fairly commensurate with the value of the extracted wealth. The opportunity to gain greater autonomy thanks to black gold was therefore there, but it was necessary to wait for the end of the world conflict to be able to take full advantage of it. Two years after the end of the Second World War, India had obtained independence, and partly as a consequence of it, the British presence in the East was greatly lightened. This too, together with other factors, led the British to recognize the independence of the various Gulf states, starting with Kuwait in 1961. Gradually, in between 1950 and 1971, Great Britain gave way to the US and the first sign of this change was the sale of the military base in Bahrayn to the United States. From this moment on, oil has guided the historic stages of the Gulf countries according to these phases: the boom of the 1970s; the emergence of regional conflicts that were source of instability and the confederation in the GCC; the collapse of oil prices during the 1990s and the increasing intrusion into the area by the US; the phase of liberalization of economies and societies, still in progress and of dubious success. In this frame, Qatar (independence 1971; oil 1949) stands out in terms of international alignments, for being the headquarter of a very important US military base. Internal dynamics reveal that the ruling family comes from a tribe whose members ramify into multiple branches, all resident in the country and all aspiring to their place within the circle of power. Qatar is also home to the Al-Jazeera channel, the Arab voice of the media that gives it a respectable place in terms of diplomatic relations, and for affecting the orientation of the general public.

2 The Gulf as a Regional System

The classical theory of international relation affirms that a regional system is characterized by internal cooperation among its states (Cantori & Spiegel, 1973, p. 25). Effectively, the Gulf and its identity have historically distinguished from the wider Arab world, thing that was institutionalized by the creation of the GCC, from 1991 onwards. Despite the birth of the GCC, many reciprocal rivalries existed. In fact, it is true that “regionalism can be understood as a dialectical process since it brings in itself the perpetual tension existing between the forces pro-regionalism and the forces against it” (Ferabolli, 2014, p. 16). The charter¹ of the Gulf Cooperation Council opens mentioning the keywords of takāmul (integration), tansīq (coordination), and taˁāun (cooperation), which seem to replace the classical concept of waḥda (unity), taking into account the need of enhancing the degree of reciprocal assistance, instead of being concerned with the setting of a single leadership, thing that has represented the main concern in the Arab world for many years. The Gulf, across history, emerged both as a regional system and home of a regional identity, the khaleeji one. It is evident, however, that the field where integration succeeded more effectively has been the economic one. Oil made possible an high level of incomes, and the consequent richness of the Gulf states allowed them to emancipate from the role of Arab periphery toward the conquest of a wider space. Consequently, some researchers have mentioned the “gulfanization” phenomenon (Ottaway, 2010), and others spoke about “the Arab Gulf momentum” (Abdulla, 2010; Abdulla in Ferabolli, 2014, p. 88) compared to the hegemony played in the past by different countries of the Arab world. We could add that the internal cooperation reflects also in the high mobility and freedom of movement for its inhabitants, which is welcomed by the Gulf ruling élites or, at least, it is not hindered. It could be problematic to find a single precise definition for the Gulf region, given that Arab people find it difficult too. They share anyway a common feeling, and they have the impression that the Gulf is “a region across which they can move more easily than anywhere else in the world, they strength the structural effect of an Arab region whose location in the world map can be pointed out, whose boundaries can be outlined, and whose main features can be distinguished from other regions. An Arab region that, ultimately, exists.” (Ferabolli, 2014, p. 150). The regional system and the Gulf area are then identified as a political space, an economic, and a performative one (ibidem: 18, 45, 156). The linguistic behaviors and attitudes that give birth to the linguistic landscape are perfectly aligned with the previous definition and its perception by Gulf inhabitants.

3 Social Change and the Gulf as a Global Contact Zone

Social change as changes in social interaction involve differently different segments of population, according to their statuses and functions. The Gulf embodies then a global contact zone, concept defined by Pratt (1991), and to be intended as a place where a plethora of repertoires—language, culture, activities, and identities—are brought together by community members. Although sharing the same macro-context (e.g., Doha), people live in their own settings, and behave consequently. Here, the concept of chronotope, literally meaning time–space, serves us well in order to take into consideration both behavior and context together, in the Gulf area. Originally adopted by Bakhtin et al. (1981, pp. 84–85) focusing on linguistics and literature, it is true that time and space remain critical factors for any kind of human (inter)action. Those two categories frame the individual’s daily practice and are subject to change along our day: the time–space of working shifts differs from the one of happy-hour or family commitments, so people are continuously placed and replaced in different frames, which have impact on their attitudes. In practice, although living in a same place (e.g., one capital city of the Gulf) time and space may be reordered many time along our day, and consequently our normative codes are reordered too. The multiplicity of contexts of interaction found in Gulf cities proves this. The same Doha offers several “landscapes” (Landry & Bourhis, 1997) where many languages and codes are visible and at stake: the Education city, the Diplomatic Area, The Pearl touristic haunt, the Mall area, and the Administrative district. Starting from the observation of the city, here taking Doha as a symbol, I want to suggest that the Gulf currently embodies a global contact zone, exposed to superdiversity (Vertovec, 2007) that is a challenging phenomenon from many point of view: culture, religion, language, economy, and diplomacy. Given the above, this chapter wants to explore the characteristic of such a challenge and the reasons that led to the current social reality.

4 Qatar: Population Trends Over the Last Century

According to Jill (Jill, 1990, p. 117), the population of Qatar decreased in the early 1900s, after the collapse of the pearl based economy, and increased later during the 70s when oil and gas—the exploitation of which was encouraged by the ruling family and Britain together—caused a new economic boom. That time the majority of the population was composed of non-Qataris, as many people from India and the South East were attracted to work in the new promising sector. The oil rent together with the rulers’ ambition to modernize the country allowed high-level standards in terms of health care, education, and housing subsidies; this led to the excellent positioning of Qatar in the Human Development Index ranking, among the highest in the world (#33 worldwide in 2015 and top one in the Arab region, UNDP Human Development Report, 2016, p. 212).

In 2003, the increase in oil prices caused another successful growth, so to attract many foreign investments in several sectors: for example, the building of new infrastructures, thing that both improved the landscape of the city center, and attracted tourism in areas like The Pearl and the Malls districts. Additionally, many US universities opened branches in Qatar, so to give rise to the Education City, the educational center for world élite professionals of the near future. In parallel with these factors, the need of workers increased again (e.g., for the building of new residential areas or new infrastructures), and the presence of foreigners was perceived as a challenge to the original local culture, more than an opportunity. The successful acceptance of the candidature of Qatar for the FIFA championship, and the recent celebration of the World Cup in Doha, also made this issue deeper, in term of workforce request.

Given the above,² one of the most important target of Qatar development planning remains to encourage knowledge-based economy, attract more skilled workers and high human capital professionals, with the hope that technology and modernization will substitute low-skilled general workers. Meanwhile, the implementation of some measures was attempted, so to promote higher fertility rates among Qataris too, in the period 2015–2017. After 2017, a reduction in oil revenues seems to have caused a reduction in the number of the resident population, included many Arab expatriates from Egypt, for example (Fig. 20.1).³

Fig. 20.1

(Source QSA [Statiscal Yearbook, 2016 and monthly figures on total population, June 2017])

Evolution of Qatar’s population and growth rate (1986–2017)

As for occupation, Qataris occupy the white-collar government positions, especially in public administration and defense (indeed, this is true for many countries!), while non-Qataris prevail in low-level occupations, although a very high percentage of foreigners is found everywhere.⁴

A sector that reveals to be critical for the monitoring of population composition is school: by the observation of schools it emerges that just one-third of the students are Qataris. Concerning the origin of foreigners living in Qatar, it emerges that India, Nepal, and Bangladesh are the first three non-Arab countries of origin, while Egypt, Syria, and Jordan the first-three Arab countries (Fig. 20.2).⁵

Fig. 20.2

(Source Labour force surveys, 2006–2015 and population census 2010)

Foreign labourers by activity (Qatar, 2006–2015, selected activities)

The composition of the resident population is also affected by some important factors like:

• marriage practices, to be considered separately for men and women;

• the lack of jus solis (birth right citizenship); and

• the lack of refugees status recognition.

In the place of aforementioned, the following practices are found instead:

• the concession of short term permits;

• the kafāla sponsorship system.

The mechanisms that regulate it are addressed here below in more detail.

5 Key-Concepts: Kafāla, Chronotope, Superdiversity, Transnationalism, and Linguistic Landscape

I want to introduce now a reflection on the system of kafāla, or sponsorship-based immigration, and the standing debate on it.⁶ It traditionally means taking care of a child, especially of an orphan, thing that is highly recommended according to Islam. Religion requires to exercise compassion and justice toward orphans, and to respect their true identity by keeping the name of the father. In fact, according to the Holy Book, one cannot become a person’s son by virtue of a declaration (Quraˀan 33:4–5).⁷

In any case, the sponsored child does not inherit, does not receive the adoptive father’s name, and cannot see the siblings without hijab, so his status is not equal to that of a natural son.

Today, kafāla has been revisited in terms of certificate (of migration) for work reasons, but the worker seems to remain somehow “orphan” of some rights and opportunities.

Although there is a new law, it

did little more than change the terms used for “sponsor” and “sponsorship”, replacing them with “recruiter” and “responsibility”, respectively. Under this law, the employer can still exercise control over the exit of foreign employee from the country. The foreign employee may submit a petition to the exit petition committee to contest the decision of the employer or the competent authority prohibiting him from exiting the country, The transfer of employment is still subject to the approval of both the employer and the Ministry of Labour⁸

6 Chronotope

This concept overcomes the old dichotomy between micro and macro, or individual vs. social. It then integrates the two, in order to hopefully answer the question: who are we? Who are Qatari resident people?

The chronotope links behavior and context in the frame of precise time–space (lit.) coordinates. Then, some new categories emerge from the following pairs:

• context + sense of belong → identity

• context +   roles                → statuses

• context + codes              → lawfulness

Identity, status and lawfulness help us in individuating superdiversity, and its facets.

7 Superdiversity

It emerges from the horizontal observation of a given city as an “unprecedented kind of complexity” (Vertovec, 2007, originally referring to London), due to migrants’ different origins, legal statuses, socioeconomic conditions, and education.

Superdiversity is comprised between the two contrasting poles of interaction and segregation. It is important to note that the scale, and not the dynamics, are new in the Gulf today, while the phenomenon per se has also been observed elsewhere, in the past. More, superdiversity concerns today countries other than Europe and the US, differently from what happened in the period between the 60s and the 90s. The challenge in the Gulf is caused by the high percentages of citizens, and their extremely varied origins. Such things ask for the need of new knowledge, included culture-sensitive practices and beliefs: clan and affiliations, culture and religions, languages and less common spoken languages, familiarity with culture-specific informal leaders and informal authorities, and awareness of other criteria of belonging are all factors to be taken into due account. Ruling powers and administrators are required to know well such facets for implementing best practices, effective planning, and allocating resources.

Superdiversity emerges as a characterizing element of the Gulf and its cities—here taking Doha as an example—motivated by the plethora of time and spaces (=contexts) that every resident experiments, according to his identity, status, and degree of lawfulness. Superdiversity implies the co-occurrence and interplay among three main factors, which are mobility, complexity, and unpredictability (Blommaert, 2010). Effectively, observed from a closer look, the global city reveals a high degree of mobility of its inhabitants, who travel to and from their original countries according to their personal plans and needs. This high mobility rate is neither predictable nor easy to monitor, thing that may trigger complexity in managing internal and external affaires.

Additionally, Meissner and Vertovec (2015, p. 542) defined superdiversity as the “new multicultural condition of the twenty-first century”, especially related to the heterogeneity of the urban condition in London. Their consideration remains valid for other cities too and the challenge here is between the diversification of diversity versus culturalization of citizenship (Duyvendak et al., 2016), and it depends on what kind of priority we set and what we intend for culture. For instance, is it to be intended as collaborative interaction or as homogeneity? Does culture result from exchange and contamination or should it be understood as a unique block?

Superdiversity as a phenomenon invites to consider culture as an open space, under continuous restructuring, but it is fundamental to understand what are the causes for superiversity in Doha today. First of all, migration, albeit it can take place for different reasons by workers, by students, by spouses and family members, by asylum seekers and refugees, and by illegals.

Superdiversity also results in transnationalism, which in turn roots in exchanges, internal linking, and connections among migrants. The monitoring of their phone calls, marriages, cohabitation and house sharing, remittances, and episodes of mutual economic assistance revealed that migrants are a social class in solidarity within themselves.

As for the effects induced by superdiversity, they may spam from prejudice and inequality, in case of segregation, to creolization and cosmopolitism, in case new cultural competences and awareness emerge from the host society.

The concept of linguistic landscape (LL) recalls the important implications of languages in the urban space, which is made of public and cultural spaces together (Blommaert, 2013, p. 3).

Landry and Bouris explained that LL “refers to the visibility and salience of languages on public and commercial signs in a given territory or region” (Landry & Bourhis, 1997, p. 25).

The resulting landscape effectively shows road panels and pieces of information provided in many different languages, both in a top-down and bottom-up fashion (Shohamy et al., 2010), depending on their intended function: informative, symbolic, public and general, and culture or status specific. The value of the information is to be read not only semantically. Such a linguistic landscape richness is motivated by actual circumstances, like the historical, social, political, geographic, and demographic ones.

The S.P.E.A.K.I.N.G. model originally created for oral communication by Hymes (1974) is worth mentioning here for summarizing the various factors involved in the communication process, even if not restricted to the oral dimension. The acronym stays for Setting and Scene, Participants, Ends, Act sequence, Key, Instrumentalities, Norms, Genre. Huebner (2009) readapted these concepts to the studies on linguistic landscapes and observed the following:

The scenario (setting) has a great impact on the signs themselves, while the scene (scenes) refers to the size and visibility, but also to the visual impact they create. Participants of the linguistic landscape are both active and passive communicators, even though there is usually not much interaction between those who produce and those who read the signs. Much more is determined by power dynamics: more precisely the communication direction, top-down or bottom-up as already mentioned above. The ends refer to the purposes that the participants to a communication event have. Usually, two main purposes in the public space are to regulate everyday life, as far as institutional signs are concerned, and to influence the behavior of people who read that sign, such as advertising for a specific product. One recurrent end is to inform the reader/public, of course. The key refers to the tone that a text takes: it can be formal or informal, friendly or aggressive, and serious or spontaneous. Instruments (instrumentalities) deal with the communication channel and the mode of communication, the written or the spoken language. Each channel follows its own rules, such as the use of vocabulary and the length of the sentences. The mode remains a main crucial factor that affects communication. For example, a conversation by phone tends to be different from one in person, due to the fact that the interlocutors cannot see each other. Norms equal shared social standards, such as how to address someone, formality, length of conversation, and distance. Other rules concern the volume of the voice, the vocabulary, and the topics to be avoided or treated. Official panels and boards may be subject to these rules, as they often tend to have formal, top-down styles. As for genres (genre), they are usually defined as clearly delimited types of expression. Therefore, the kinds of signs are road signs, billboards, gravestones, inscriptions, and notices. The signs are never neutral because they always show connections with the social structure, power, and hierarchies: they reflect and regulate the structure of the space in which they operate, contributing to the organization and regulation of that space by selecting the audience to which it is located or addressed, and imposing particular restrictions, offering invitations, issuing rules of conduct, and so on, to that given audience.⁹

8 The Urban Space in Doha: The Preservation of Cultural Heritage Faces Social Complexity

Studies about the urban space and its architecture have been conducted by Salama and Weidmann (2013), and Furlan and Faggion (2017). These architects examined the building planning and processes that led to the actual aspect of Doha city. Salama together with Weidmann examined the urban space diversity in Doha, according to both perceptions and inhabitants personal daily experience, so highlighted the interplay between space construction and inhabitants’ roles (Fig. 20.3). They exemplified this with a scheme (Salama & Weidmann, 2013, p. 162).

Fig. 20.3

(Source Authors)

Framework for investigating the production of urban environments based on Henri Lefebvre

Furlan and Faggion signaled that urban space has to be functional to human activities, but it is also culture specific. Recalling Falahat studies, the authors observed that the planning of a traditional Islamic city (or quarter) is hierarchically determined according to the centrality of religious buildings as the mosque, first of all. Differently, the mall areas or the touristic haunt are more functionally planned, in a way that impedes people get lost even if they do not know the area well. The coexistence of heritage and modern planning in Doha seems to preserve somehow the culture-specific city space, although characterized by a multilingual background which emerges from the city landcape.

9 Multilingual Panels and the Relation Between Signs and Contents: Visualizing the Invisible

The various sign typology and characteristics show the adoption of different languages, with their different alphabets or ideograms that coexist in the global city. This confirms that diversity is the norm in communication (De Fina et al., 2017, pp. 56, 66, 97).

Effectively, panels that provide information by different languages may be based on¹⁰:

• identical duplication

• fragmentary multilingualism (selection reproduced in another language)

• multilingual writing overlap (e.g., by lines, but not full translation)

• multilingual complementary (e.g., for integration)

As for sign typology, we find¹¹:

• permanent signs, such as road signs, commercial signs, permanent advertisements, monuments, and graffiti;

• the signs linked to a particular event, such as posters, temporary commercial signs (sales, discounts, etc.), and real estate advertisements;

• the so-called noise, that is what is found by chance in the places of the city, especially with regard to advertising or written announcements on cars, vans, and public transport.

Considering the above, the appearance of so many codes and representations rises the reaction of city inhabitants, which may vary a lot according to the strength or weakness of local actors in terms of social relations and dynamics.

For example, foreigners can adopt their original language for a sense of identity claim, which manifests strength, or for lack of integration, which reveals weakness. Differently, Qataris may prefer to adopt and strive to preserve Arabic in response to their perception of cultural threat, or reply with a collaborative attitude supporting the teaching of Arabic to non-natives—as an example of cultural strength. The landscape of the city, then, is very rich in different linguistic codes and reveals that urban spaces can help us in visualizing the invisible. It means that we cannot ignore the presence of different cultures, groups, and languages when they are attested by written codes in panels and signs. These are the effects of changes brought by modernity, and its dynamics. Effectively, cultures find their strategy for emerging in a way that goes well beyond the city élite maneuver and purposes. Hauptmann (Read & Pinilla, 2006, pp. 13–15) recalled the concept formulated by Lefebvre, who highlighted that the nature of urban space and “the urban” is no longer recognizable as a totality or singular entity. The rupture of the supposed integrity and homogeneity of the city gives rise to a new form of knowledge. This knowledge has the city as its space, where events and cultural manifestations occur simultaneously at a very fast pace, so that new (linguistic) realities are created by city inhabitants, who perform as social agents. Power relations and the will of ruling élites weakens in front of the number and diversity of individuals that daily carry out their activities using both their codes and their languages: in different words, their habits.

In conclusion, it is evident that the high income available in Qatar allowed to deliver public services to a relatively wide sector of the population, and this has to be considered strategic for the stability of the area and societal wellness. Budgeting, then, reveals to be critical to the welfare of Qatar, and for avoiding the birth of conflicts among different groups that live together inside the same society. Migration has given rise to social change, and this led to the phenomenon of superdiversity. This extremely differentiated environment manifests its characteristics in the (linguistic) landscape of the city, rich in signs, panels, and various forms of advertisement. The dynamics of integration are crucial to the analysis of the phenomenon, and ask for widening the horizon of culture well beyond the limits of specificity and particularism. The risk is that superdiversity and the number of people it involves impact someway the provision of public services, and trigger impair service delivery. As suggestion for further research, the issue of representation and decision-making could be further investigated in the area, with special regard to the more populous communities. In any case, even if delivery does not cover every person in need, people may still prefer impair service delivery in Qatar as the best alternative to extreme poverty in their homeland.