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Profile
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College / Department
Teaching areas
Cultural Anthropology Gender Studies Middle East Studies
Research areas
Cultural Anthropology Animal Studies Migration Studies Critical University Studies
Education
PhD, Cultural Anthropology, University of California Irvine, 2008
MA, Women's Studies, San Francisco State University, 2002
BA, Psychology, Women's Studies, Wesleyan University, 1996
Memberships
Middle East Studies Organization, MESA, International
Contact
Dr. Neha Vora
Professor
PhD, University of California Irvine,
Neha Vora is Professor of Anthropology in the Department of International Studies at the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. She received her PhD in anthropology and gender studies at University of California, Irvine. Her interdisciplinary research and teaching interests include diasporas and migration, citizenship, globalized higher education, gender, liberalism, political economy, and human-nonhuman encounters, primarily in the Arabian Peninsula region. She is the author of Impossible Citizens: Dubai’s Indian Diaspora (Duke University Press, 2013) and Teach for Arabia: American Universities, Liberalism, and Transnational Qatar (Stanford University Press, 2018), as well as several single-and ...
Publications
Neha Vora. Between Dreams and Ghosts: Indian Migration and Middle Eastern Oil., Polar: Political \& Legal Anthropology Review, 2023
Neha Vora. Neoliberal Authoritarianism? Knowledge Economy, Nativism, and National Branding in Qatar, 2023
Danya Al-saleh And Neha Vora. US Higher education and fossil fuels: the limits of liberalism in university climate action, Climate And Development, 2023
Neha Vora. The cats of Gaza or why Nakba is a multispecies catastrophe, Allegra Lab
Vineeta Singh And Neha Vora. Critical University Studies, Annual Review Of Anthropology, 23 October (4th Quarter/Autumn) 2023
Neha Vora. PANDEMIC SECURITY AND INSECURITY IN THE GULF, 2022
Le Renard, Am\'elie And Neha Vora. Les rapports sociaux de race dans l’\'etude des soci\'et\'es du Golfe, Politika, 2022
Neha Vora. Stateless in the Gulf: Migration, Nationality, and Society in Kuwait. By Claire Beaugrand, 2022
Zahra Babar And Neha Vora. The 2022 World Cup and Migrants' Rights in Qatar: Racialised Labour Hierarchies and the Influence of Racial Capitalism, Political Quarterly, 1 July (3rd Quarter/Summer) 2022
Le Renard, Am\'elie And Neha Vora. Interrogating Race in Gulf Studies, Pomeps Studies, 2021
Neha Vora. Return to Ruin: Iraqi Narratives of Exile and Nostalgia. Zainab Saleh (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2020). Pp. 280. $25.00 paper. ISBN: 9781503614116, International Journal Of Middle East Studies, 2021
Neha Vora And Le Renard, Am\'elie. Who is" Indian" in the Gulf? Race, Labor and Citizenship., Middle East Report, 2021
Le Renard, Am\'elie, Neha Vora And Ahmed Kanna. Beyond Exception. New Interpretations of the Arabian Peninsula, 2020
Ahmed Kanna, Le Renard, Am\'elie And Neha Vora. Beyond exception: New interpretations of the Arabian Peninsula, 2020
Neha Vora. Anthropology and the Educational Encounter, Beyond Exception: New Interpretations Of The Arabian Peninsula, 2020
Ahmed Kanna, Le Renard, Am\'elie And Neha Vora. Centering the Arabian Peninsula, Decolonizing the Academy, Beyond Exception: New Interpretations Of The Arabian Peninsula, 2020
Neha Vora. Offshore Citizens: Permanent Temporary Status in the Gulf by Noora Lori, The Middle East Journal, 2020
Neha Vora, Ahmed Kanna And Le Renard, Am\'elie. Space, Mobility, and Shifting Identities in the Constitution of the “Field”, Beyond Exception: New Interpretations Of The Arabian Peninsula, 2020
Danya Al-saleh And Neha Vora. Contestations of Imperial Citizenship: Student Protest and Organizing in Qatar's Education City, International Journal Of Middle East Studies, 1 November 2020
Natalie Koch And Neha Vora. Islamophobia and the uneven legal geographies of ethnonationalism, Political Geography, 1 November 2020
Megan Sweeney, Ashwini Tambe, Judith Gardiner, Kathryn Moeller, Neha Vora, Priti Ramamurthy And Alexis Gumbs. Preface, Feminist Studies, 1 January (1st Quarter/Winter) 2020
Judith Gardiner And Neha Vora. Preface, Feminist Studies, 1 January (1st Quarter/Winter) 2020
Natalie Koch And Neha Vora. Laboratories of Liberalism: American Higher Education in the Arabian Peninsula and the Discursive Production of Authoritarianism, Minerva, 1 December 2019
Neha Vora. Teach for Arabia: American universities, liberalism, and transnational Qatar, 2018
Neha Vora And Ahmed Kanna. DE-EXCEPTIONALIZING THE FIELD, The Arab Studies Journal, 2018
Neha Vora. Diaspora, The International Encyclopedia Of Anthropology, 2018
Rachel Goshgarian And Neha Vora. Team-teaching as Feminist Praxis at a Small Liberal Arts College, Review Of Middle East Studies, 2018
Neha Vora. Between global citizenship and Qatarization: negotiating Qatar's new knowledge economy within American branch campuses, 2017
Neha Vora. A Society of Young Women: Opportunities of Place, Power, and Reform in Saudi Arabia by Am\'elie Le Renard, 2015
Neha Vora. The anthropology of citizenship: a reader, 2015
Neha Vora And Natalie Koch. Everyday Inclusions: Rethinking Ethnocracy, Kafala, and Belonging in the A Rabian Peninsula, Studies In Ethnicity And Nationalism, 2015
Neha Vora. Expat/expert camps: Redefining ‘labour’within Gulf migration, Transit States. Labour, Migration And Citizenship In The Gulf, 2015
Neha Vora. Is the University Universal? Mobile (Re) Constitutions of A merican Academia in the G ulf A rab S tates, Anthropology \& Education Quarterly, 2015
Neha Vora. Domestic work, affective labor, and social reproduction in South Asian America: A tribute to Laxmi Soni, Feminist Formations, 2014
Neha Vora. Impossible citizens: Dubai's Indian diaspora, 2013
Neha Vora. Dubai: The City as Corporation, The Middle East Journal, 2012
Neha Vora And Tom Boellstorff. Anatomy of an article: The peer-review process as method, American Anthropologist, 2012
Neha Vora. Free speech and civil discourse: producing expats, locals, and migrants in the UAE E nglish-language blogosphere, Journal Of The Royal Anthropological Institute, 2012
Neha Vora. From golden frontier to global city: Shifting forms of belonging,“freedom,” and governance among Indian businessmen in Dubai, American Anthropologist, 2011
Neha Vora. Unofficial citizens: Indian entrepreneurs and the state-effect in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, International Labor And Working-class History, 2011
Neha Vora. Wanda Krause Women in Civil Society: The State, Islamism, and Networks in the UAE, 2010
Neha Vora. Business elites, unofficial citizenship, and privatized governance in Dubai, Viewpoints: Migration And The Gulf, 2010
Neha Vora. The precarious existence of Dubai’s Indian middle class, Middle East Report, 2009
Neha Vora. American Anthropologist Behind the Scenes, American Anthropologist, 2008
Neha Vora. Producing diasporas and globalization: Indian middle-class migrants in Dubai, Anthropological Quarterly, 2008
Conference Presentations
Marwa Koheji book workshop, April 2024
Gulf-Born, Second and Third Generation Foreign Residents: A Resource for Gulf States’ Development Process, Gulf Labour Markets, Migration, And Population Programme, January 2024
The Post-spectacle City: The Politics of Space, Nation, and Multispecies Belonging After Dubai Expo 2020 and the 2022 Qatar World Cup, December 2023
US/Gulf Cultures of Empire, American Studies Association, November 2023
US/Gulf Cultures of Empire, Middle East Studies Association, November 2023
Grants and sponsorships
Grant, Entangled Precarities: the politics of stray cat care and urban place-making in the UAE, Wenner-Gren Foundation
Grant, Entangled precarities: stray cat care, human-nonhuman kinship, and urban belonging in the United Arab Emirates, Al Qasimi Foundation
Grant, Faculty Seed Grant, College of Arts and Sciences, October 2023