Becoming Arab in London: Performativity and the Undoing of Identity

273 Pages·2015·11.66 MB·English

by  Ramy M. K. Aly

Becoming Arab in London

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Anthropology, Culture and Society
Series Editors:
Professor Vered Amit, Concordia University
and
Professor Christina Garsten, Stockholm University
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Becoming Arab
in London
Performativity and the
Undoing of Identity
Ramy M.K. Aly

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First published 2015 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © Ramy M.K. Aly 2015
The right of Ramy M.K. Aly to be identified as the author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 3359 5 Hardback
ISBN 978 0 7453 3358 8 Paperback
ISBN 978 1 7837 1156 7 PDF eBook
ISBN 978 1 7837 1158 1 Kindle eBook
ISBN 978 1 7837 1157 4 EPUB eBook
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the
country of origin.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Typeset by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England
Text design by Melanie Patrick
Simultaneously printed digitally by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, UK
and Edwards Bros in the United States of America

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To Heba, Naila, Mounir, Sharif, Rania and Osama.

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Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Series Preface x
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction 1
Everyday Arabness 12
Tresspassing: The Reach of Performativity 16
Re-Reading ‘Sex and Temperament’ 21
Getting Stuck Between ‘Performance’ and ‘Performativity’ 25
Performative Race: The Injunctions ‘To Be’ Ethnic in Britain 30
1. Critical Junctures in the Making of Arab London 34
Struggles of the Homeland: Students and Activists 1924–73 35
London for Sale: Playboy Princes and ‘The Petrodollar Invasion’ 48
The ‘Stray Dogs’ in London: Political Purges 1977–89 52
War and the Making of British Arabs 60
Migration, Ethnic Counting and the Racialisation of ‘Arabness’ 62
Making and Unmaking ‘Arab London’ 66
2. Learning to be Arab: Growing Up in London 70
The War at School 72
Learning to be an Arab Man 73
Gendering Narratives and Arabs in Hiding 79
(Re)Citing Masculine Heroism 83
Learning to be an Arab Woman 87
One Performance, Competing Structures of Subjection 96
Contested Recitations of Identitarian Authenticity 98
3. Going for Shisha: Doing Ethnicity, Gender and Class 104
Shisha: the Aromas of Gender, Ethnicity and Morality 111
The Walk of Shame 117
Our Kind of People, Our Kind of Place 124

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viii Becoming Arab in London
4. Dancing Class: Choreographing Arabness in London 133
Emirs and Emiras: Partying with the Stereotype of Arab Wealth 136
No Sex Please We’re Arabs 139
Assuming a Position on Dance 145
Raqs: Performance, Comportment and Sexuality 146
The Dancing Men: Gender Parody or Ambiguity? 156
5. Reclaiming the Orient through the Diasporic Gaze 166
Orientalism in Art: Al-Qanoon 170
An Orient in My Likeness 175
The Encrypted Others of Melancholia 189
6. Performativity and the Undoing of Identity 195
A Performative Reading of Becoming Arab in London 202
Notes 215
Bibliography 221
Index 249

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List of Illustrations
1.1 Members of the first Arab student Union football team in
Britain 1958 41
1.2 Arab demonstrators with pro-Palestinian banners march on
the Israeli Embassy in Kensington, London, 14 October 1973 46
1.3 A campaign advert by the Committee for Justice in the
Middle East 47
1.4 An Arab family in South Kensington, London, 25 March 1976 49
1.5 Libyan cartoonist Mohammed Alzuwawi caricatures the
behaviour of male Khaleeji tourists in London 1977 51
1.6 Two Arab students standing in front of an uninterested
painter and decorator during a protest at the London offices
of the Arab League against Syrian involvement in the Lebanon,
10 June 1976 53
3.1 Card games and Shisha, a scene from Downtown Cafe in 2006 107
5.1 A manga-style belly dancer on a poster advertising an LSE
Arabic Society party, January 2006 167
5.2 A poster advertising an ‘Arabic Mediterranean Party’ shows a
titillating odalisque revealing pearly white legs from behind a
pink yashmak, April 2006 168
5.3 A belly dancer is used to advertise a boat party celebrating
the Persian festival of Sadeh in February 2006. The event was
co-organised by the King’s College Arabic Society and the
King’s College Iranian Society 169
5.4 ‘Folklore Fashion I’ 177
5.5 ‘Folklore Fashion II’ 178
5.6 ‘Folklore Fashion III’ 179
6.1 The remains of an Iraqi election poster on a wall on Bell
Street NW1 in 2006 197
6.2 London postcodes SE5, SW8, SW9 and SW10 are claimed
as ‘Baghdad Zonez’ on a college wall in West London, 2008 210

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