Nationalism and Nationhood in the United Arab Emirates

This book shows how an encounter with everyday nationhood in the northern United Arab Emirates can make us revisit the classics of sociology as continuous analytical world-views.

Through the textual universe of Georg Simmel, and in particular his analysis of modern life as the feeling of dualism, the project reflects about how seemingly crucial challenges to the national – the forces of globalization and the wish to be unique – are drawn together with the formation of nationhood in everyday life.

It does so not least by attending to the instances of everyday nationhood – like fashion and car-driving – that are at the same time central ways of embodying the modern.

This volume appeals to students of nationalism, classical sociology, and the modern Arab Gulf.