Dr Nadeen Dakkak - https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7514-6747
Alwaleed Postdoctoral Fellow, October 2021 - July 2022
Home Institution: University of Warwick
I received my PhD in English and Comparative Literary Studies in 2021 from the University of Warwick. My research examined how migration to the Arab Gulf States is represented in Arabic fiction. I focused on Arabic novels tackling themes of alienation, social exclusion and/or belonging and that are set from around the 1970s onwards, the period which saw an unprecedented increase in migration to the Gulf region. Central to my analysis are the regional transformations brought about by oil and the impact of Gulf migration policies on migrant experiences. My research interests extend beyond Arabic fiction and cover literature from/about the Gulf in English or in translation as well as literature and popular culture on migration and diaspora more generally. From October 2020 to July 2021, I was an Early Career Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study at Warwick.
Project Title: Arab Diasporas in the Gulf: Hospitality and Gratitude in Digital Articulations of Cultural and Islamic Affinity
As IASH-Alwaleed fellow, my project is interested in discourses of Arab and Islamic hospitality towards migrants in the Arab Gulf States and in narratives of gratitude amongst second-generation Arab migrants in particular. For many Arab migrant communities to whom the Gulf is a safe haven in comparison to their own war-torn countries, their feelings are ambivalent and often oscillate between gratitude for being welcomed and resentment for not being more generously accommodated as either Arabs, Muslims, or both. This project will trace these sentiments in digital spaces, focusing on textual, auditory and visual cultural productions. By examining instances of self-representation and articulations of identity and belonging amongst second-generation Arab migrants, I aim to investigate how they narrate their relationship to the Gulf and navigate cultural and religious affinity as well as legal and social exclusion.
Publications
“Contesting Narratives of Victimization in Migration to the Arab Gulf States: A Reading of Mia Alvar’s In the Country,” Journal of Arabian Studies (Forthcoming, 2021).
“The Absent Voices of Second-Generation Migrants in the Gulf States,” Migrants-Rights.org (27 June 2020) https://www.migrant-rights.org/2020/06/the-absent-voices-of-second-generation-migrants-in-the-gulf-states/.
“Migrant Labour, Immobility and Invisibility in Literature on the Arab Gulf States,” In Mobilities, Literature, Culture, edited by Marian Aguiar, Charlotte Mathieson, and Lynne Pearce. Palgrave Macmillan (November 2019), pp. 189-210.