Camels and Cosmopolitanism: Exploring Expatriate Women’s Belonging in the UAE’s Desert Spaces

Marta Wieczorek, Zayed University
Anke Reichenbach, Zayed University

Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

Journal of Arabian Studies

Publication Date

12-22-2025

Abstract

This article investigates entanglements between expatriate women and camel culture in the United Arab Emirates. It focuses on analyzing the role of camels and the community formed around them in establishing a sense of belonging among women residing in the UAE. The aim is to explore how expatriate females’ interactions with camels transform their relationship with landscapes and people in the Emirates, provide a path to participating in Gulf heritage sports, and help create a gendered feeling of home in a transient environment. Our study is based on participant observation and interviews. The unique contribution of this study lies in offering a new, gender- and expat-focused angle to the existing scholarly debates on community, place-making, and territorial and emotional belonging in the Gulf, and to the literature on interspecies leisure and sports in non-Western contexts, which is still comparatively scarce. The article recognizes female participation in the Gulf’s heritage sports and prioritizes experiences of female camel racers, which have been rarely discussed in the academic literature. No research to date has highlighted multispecies connections between expat women and camels and the specificity of their relationship with the animals.

ISSN

2153-4780

Publisher

Informa UK Limited

Disciplines

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Keywords

camels, Gulf studies, heritage sports, migrants, women

Scopus ID

105025470256

Indexed in Scopus

yes

Open Access

no

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