DAFF 25A15 - Qatar, Dubai and Abu Dhabi : cultural political sociology of new international powers

The role of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates in both the building and the representations of the global stage has increased and diversified since the late 1990s. From an economic one, linked to the foreign extraction of oil and gas from their territories, and the purchase of arms from the same countries, it has become more political with the opening of some of the main Americain military bases in Asia and developed into cultural projects with a high level of international visibility.

The last World Cup happened in Qatar, the last World Expo in Dubai. The first foreign branches of the Sorbonne University and the Louvre Museum were opened in Abu Dhabi. But those political entities also ended up being key political players on the global stage at the occasion of the 2011 “Arab Spring”, and crucial locations in the 2026 war between the United States, Israel and Iran.

If this course has the description of cultural places and moments in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates as a starting point, it aims at contributing to the description of power in those political entities in general, and understanding their place on the global stage through the lenses of political sociology.

The sessions will be structured in a way to enable the students to familiarize with the methodology of the teacher, which is the political sociology of culture, and the notion of a bureaucratic national middle class, that are at the core of the book Le Miroir des cheikhs : musée et politique dans les principautés du golfe Persique.

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Writing a reading record of one of the books mentioned in the bibliography during class session (45 %), group presentation on one of the topics proposed by the teacher at the first session (45 %), oral participation during the class session (10%).