NationBuilding, State and the Genderframing of Women's Rights in the United Arab Emirates (19712009),New

Product Description In the United Arab Emirates, the extensive change to Emirati women's traditional rights and roles has been one of the most visible transformations taking place throughout the country's 40 years of modern history. This book offers an interpretation of why and how these modifications came about. The book discovers that there is no direct or easy link between the State's 'offer of rights' towards women and society's acceptance of them. Given these circumstances, the mechanisms that induce women to actually take advantage of what is offered have not been given sufficient attention. The concept of 'genderframing' aims precisely at defining the 'connecting mechanism' and explaining the successes and failures of these policies, both mobilizationwise and implementationwise. The term 'genderframing' refers to a dynamic and interactive process between the State and its population, which entails the symbolic rework of meanings associated with womenrelated policies. It is argued that such reinterpretation has been purposefully conducted by the Emirati State in order to portray the changing roles of women as necessary and desirable, for reasons associated with nationbuilding purposes, religious conformity, promotion of family values, and efforts at indigenous cultural preservation. The book highlights the profound intertwining of gender, nationbuilding, and domestic sociopolitical dynamics in a country that, while seeking to establish its modernizing credentials, is still struggling for selfdefinition and empowerment. Review The book addresses the interconnected notions of gender, nationbuilding, and domestic sociopolitical dynamics in the newly established state of the United Arab Emirates that, while aspiring to establish a modern country, is still searching for selfdefinition and empowerment. It presents two forms of analyses. On the one hand, it investigates the strategic plan of the UAE state in creating and reconfiguring alterations to the genderframe. On the other hand, it examines the resonance or impact of such a genderframe on the society in general and Emirati women in particular. The abstract term of 'genderframing' is used by the author to refer to the dynamic and interactive process between the government or state and its population or society, which aims at reshaping or reinterpreting meanings connected to womenrelated policies. Such reinterpretations have been made by the UAE state revealing the changing roles of women as enviable and necessary for reasons related to nationbuilding objectives that include the promotion of family values and the maintenance of religious and cultural orientations. According to the author, this genderframing activity leads to the construction of a genderframe, a collective framework of interpretation that provides the population with constructive orientations with which to address womenrelated policies. The book provides a case study of the intersection of genderframing and nationbuilding in Gulf countries with a special focus on the UAE as the only successful experience of political union in the Arab world, notwithstanding its traditional polity as a tribal hereditary monarchy. The author collected data based on Internet searches, personal connections, and interviews that were conducted across the seven Emirates, the majority of which came from the Emirates of Dubai and Sharjah. In addition, the author used content analysis of womenrelated speeches and statements made by state officials and members of the ruling families, obtained from a variety of sources including official publications, websites, and online newspapers such as the Gulf News and alKhaleej. The author briefly reviewed previous studies, especially those of Suaad alOraimi and Wanda Krause that defined the UAE state's position towards women as part of the government's project of development accentuating the nation's unity and identity building. In her attempt to further develop