Lori Publishes Article on Racial Formations in Africa and the Middle East
Noora Lori, Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published an article in the Project on Middle East Political Science’s (POMEPS) and Program on African Social Research’s (PASR) journal “Racial Formations in Africa and the Middle East: A Transregional Approach,” in which she highlights the African minorities that have been largely neglected in discussions of national identity in the Persian Gulf.
The article, titled “Who counts as “People of the Gulf”? Disputes over the Arab status of Zanzibaris in the UAE,” was co-authored by Lori and Yoana Kuzmova, Visiting Assistant Professor at BU’s School of Law. This article examines the contested legal status of Zanzibaris and other East African minorities in the UAE. It is based on archives as well as the authors’ legal advocacy for stateless populations in the UAE.
An excerpt:
By reflecting on the contested status of Zanzibaris, we follow Vora and Le Renard’s call (this volume) to show how racial hierarchy in the Gulf can deepen our understanding of global racial formations. Exploring the same period of displacement out of Zanzibar as Nathaniel Mathews (this volume), we center the politics undergirding regional racial hierarchies in what he terms the “overlap between an ethnic conception of citizenship and the logics of race” in Oman and the UAE.
Alongside the research Lori conducted for her book Offshore Citizens: Permanent Temporary Status in the Gulf, she fundraised to set up a legal clinic for the interviewees of this article and created the position of Initiative on Forced Migration and Human Trafficking (FMHT) legal fellow. From 2016-2019, Kuzmova acted as this FMHT legal fellow and led a project at the International Human Rights Clinic at BU’s School of Law, during which her team interviewed minorities who received Comoros passports from the UAE government, including Zanzibaris.
The full article can be read on POMEPS’ website.
Noora Lori’s research broadly focuses on the political economy of migration, the development of security institutions and international migration control, and the establishment and growth of national identity systems. She is particularly interested in the study of temporary worker programs and racial hierarchies in comparative perspective. Regionally, her work examines the shifting population movements accompanying state formation in the Persian Gulf, expanding the study of Middle East politics to include historic and new connections with East Africa and the Indian subcontinent. Lori is the Founding Director of the Pardee School Initiative on Forced Migration and Human Trafficking. Read more about Professor Lori on her faculty profile.