Local Interpretations of Global Trends: Body Concerns and Self-Projects Enacted by Young Emirati Women

Abstract

In this dissertation, I use the ethnographic case study of the United Arab Emirates to illustrate a much larger phenomenon that involves young women worldwide in the throes of identity negotiation at a time of accelerated global flows of information, foods, fashion, media images, fashions, health information, and health and self-enhancement products. My research utilizes ethnographic and anthropometric information as a means of investigating the ways in which these global flows are affecting the physical bodies, attitudes, behaviors, perceptions of self, and perceptions of community in a sample of young, female, Emiratis living in the UAE in the Arab Gulf in the twenty-first century. I employ biocultural methods and perspectives to examine bodies-as-products and bodies-as-projects in this cohort, focusing on health, beauty, and self-presentation projects. I also focus on the uncertainty and accompanying psychosocial stress that these women are subject to as a result of juggling globalized, "modern" opportunities and lifestyles on the one hand with local expectations and regulations on the other. Key to these analyses is the acknowledgment of the synergy between biology and culture, and the effects of both local and global factors on this synergy.