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Profile

College / Department

College of Arts and Sciences

Department of International Studies

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

[email protected]

Dr. Neha Vora

Assistant 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: stray cat care, human-nonhuman kinship, and urban belonging in the United Arab Emirates, Al Qasimi Foundation, 15 October 2024 - 15 September 2025

Grant, Faculty Seed Grant, College of Arts and Sciences, October 2023