Alex Grama

The focus of my undergraduate dissertation is represented by Dubai’s South-Asian underclass and their transnational process of bearing the prejudice inflicted by the Emirati society. In order to establish their disregarded significance, the transnational discourse becomes the unifying factor amongst the segregationist practices that arise from the realms of urban geography and the visual proficiency of the city’s spectacle. The event that set in motion the development of Dubai’s society is the… عرض المزيد

The focus of my undergraduate dissertation is represented by Dubai’s South-Asian underclass and their transnational process of bearing the prejudice inflicted by the Emirati society. In order to establish their disregarded significance, the transnational discourse becomes the unifying factor amongst the segregationist practices that arise from the realms of urban geography and the visual proficiency of the city’s spectacle. The event that set in motion the development of Dubai’s society is the oil discovery of 1966. The urban augmentation that followed initiated the contemporary geographical segregation whereas the heightened urban growth led to the society’s spectacle, inducting the pervasive visual segregation.
Chapter one, ‘The Topography of Alienation’, constructs the city of Dubai as a relevant case study in which specific segments of the city’s urban culture are analysed, such as the sovereignty of the automobile and the manner in which the culture of the urban planning succeeds in alienating the underclass. The second chapter, ‘The ‘Architecture’ of the Visual Seclusion’, analyses Dubai’s fundamental rendition of Guy Debord’s theory of the spectacle by evaluating the physical manifestations of the spectacle and the power of the media outlets to legitimize the physical augmentation of Dubai’s society. Hence, the cultural invisibility is established as a consequence of the relationship between the spectacle and the underclass, mediated by the pervasive gaze.
The purpose of the dissertation is to accurately place the origins of the underclass’ segregation within the cultural and political development of Dubai by rendering the alienation as a constructor of identities. Within this context, the unifying transnational discourse defines the mutually dependent relationship between the expatriate individuals, obscuring the boundaries between the South-Asian states and Dubai as the transnational identity becomes an act of resistance, a disruption of global processes.
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Published in my high school senior year, Scopul Final, i.e. The Final Purpose, represents a first attempt of personal comprehension of the surrounding world. Although limited in scope, the 224-page novel deals with the ways in which people handle their lives collapsing onto themselves and the subsequent repercussions that ensue. However, I still regard the first novel I ever published to be not only the catalyst of what would turn out to be a desire to serve the writing industry, but also my… عرض المزيد

Published in my high school senior year, Scopul Final, i.e. The Final Purpose, represents a first attempt of personal comprehension of the surrounding world. Although limited in scope, the 224-page novel deals with the ways in which people handle their lives collapsing onto themselves and the subsequent repercussions that ensue. However, I still regard the first novel I ever published to be not only the catalyst of what would turn out to be a desire to serve the writing industry, but also my incipient magnum opus. I withdrew the novel from each one of the selling websites in 2012 due to future plans of intensive editing and rewriting. My intention is to translate it into English and republish it in the near future. عرض أقل