Education City, a Culture

Education City, or Hamad Bin Khalifa University, is an interesting place. It is home to hundreds of students from a host of diverse nations, each with their unique culture and experiences. Students have the opportunity to continue their studies from primary to secondary school, from an undergrad to even an executive master's degree. One thing that we learned in class is that socialization is the interactive process by which people learn the ways of the society in which they live. HBKU operates by a set of sub-laws that, although not supra-national laws, are answerable directly to the authority of HBKU itself, which has its own policing force, rules and regulations, expectations, and codes of conduct. Students that enjoy the privilege of an education in HBKU that have attended schools in Qatar previously will notice the immediate shift in the social environment. They become socialized within the boundaries of HBKU that there is a much more lax dress code, rules against public displays of affection are not as oppressive, although still firm, and the cultural and ideological diversity breeds new ideas and interactions between people that previously would never have met. Grazian explains this as cultural diffusion, a process where cultures adapt parts of other cultures. Qatar has created a bubble here whereby the local culture adapts parts of cultures world-wide: the American universities hold vacations during Muslim holy days, a practice that isn't common in the US, is just one example. Karl Marx states in his theory that when there is a large group of people that are in proximity to each other, people start to talk. When people start to talk, ideas begin to spread, and new habits and cultural idiosyncrasies are developed. Grazian states that culture is determined by the social contexts in which we interact with others, and that subcultures are smaller groups that are distinct from the larger social contexts they exist in based on their values, beliefs, symbols, and/or activities. Each university in HBKU holds its own values, and each of the students have their own values and beliefs, and HBKU itself has its own values, beliefs, and vision of what it wants for its students. Members of HBKU have their own vehicle tags to allow them unobstructed entry onto the campus, each university member has his or her own ID and an assortment of office supplies, clothes, and other utensils that have either HBKU or the name of their host university on them. Upon graduation, each student receives a rather expensive-looking ring with their name engraved on it with a stylistic engraving of the HBKU tree's leaf. These things can arguably be called the totems of HBKU, or an object that serves as the symbol of the group. HBKU as a scene has its own idioculture, enjoying its own collective memory and shared experiences, its own ideology and attitude, and its own system of knowledge, all of which Grazian states are important tenets of microscenes and idiocultures. Ultimately, HBKU can be seen as a culture that is a fabricated and sped up modern-day "Renaissance," an investment in human capital and potential that touches on the experiences of the West with a vision for Qatar.

The Arab Feminism Wave

My parents are dentists (scary, I know). When I asked them once how much they make and they told me, I realized that my mom makes a little bit less money than my dad. When I asked her about the reason as to why they give my dad more money, she said, it’s because your dad is the man of the house and in this culture he is the one who is supposed to take care of the family, so they give him more money for household expenses.

This conversation happened when I was a child, but I still do remember how shocking it was for me because all I thought about then was how unfair it would be for me when I grow up and decide to be the woman of my own house, no man involved. Would they give me more money? Aren’t I the breadwinner too?

Certainly, things in Qatar have changed (not the salary thing though, it’s still intact in the government sectors) but women are still thriving for better chances of equality and fairness. Most of the mothers I know are prime examples for the second shift. The second shift is the jobs that working wives do to run the household after they finish the workday. They all deserve that extra money since they contribute to the household… like a lot!

Anyways, more and more young women are becoming quite the neo-feminists. Neo- Feminism does not have a social agenda; it emphasizes personal fulfillment above all else. Young women focus on their education and jobs, not for the purpose of supporting a family or building one, but for their own personal wants and needs. It’s the concept of “Spending my money on myself.” That’s why you see a lot of girls in Education City and a lot of them with designer shoes.

Shopping is a big thing for girls here. Not for me though, I really hate shopping (I’m more of the amusement parks kind of person). Consumer culture is pretty popular here and the fancy malls we have aren’t helping. All adds for all sorts of products try to target these neoliberal women and tell them, “hey, you work hard, you deserve this” or “You want to be different and brand new, then you gotta do this.”

Like seriously, nobody is benefiting more from feminism than big corporations. Despite the fact that I’m a feminist, I’m a little bit tad suspicious about all those chick flick movies and “be the independent women” kind of messages that circulate in media. Because, is it just me, or the more feminist you are, the more shopping you gotta do and the more sexualized you otta be. No, thank you, sir. This Dove short film really got me thinking about this:

Perhaps we should be careful with those who claim to be supporting us when all they really are doing is milking our money and altering our perception of ourselves.

Nice White Ladies in NUQ

In Hollywood films, there is a high school film genre, in which films focus on a certain high school as there setting. Usually in these films, the class room is filled with troubled, underachievers, who are saved by one teacher or principal (Sutherland, Jean, and Feltey, P.71). One common theme is the "Outsider as the Teacher-Hero". This theme can be seen in films such as Dangerous Minds and Freedom writers. In these films, the classroom consists of ethnic minorities and the teacher is the "white savior" that saves the day and communicates with the students is a middle class white teacher who is new to teaching and does not belong to the community (Sutherland, Jean, and Feltey, P.71).

  

Even though Arabs and Qataris are not ethnic minorities in Qatar, however, some professors who come here think of themselves as saviors that came to educate these poor little Arabs who live in the middle of the desert. For some reason, these “nice white ladies” do not seem to differentiate between the fact that they came to Qatar for a paid job, and in return, they get so many privileges just for being ‘white’. However, this form of social inequality is not even the problem. The problem is that some ‘nice white ladies’ have crossed the thin line between being an educator and being orientalist. When the ‘nice white ladies’ could not get over their fascination with the Qatari and Arab culture and traditions. Their preconceived stereotypes of Arabs living in deserts and moving around with camels confuses most 'nice white ladies' that come to teach in the Arab world, especially in Qatar. When these 'nice white ladies' see the real lifestyle of Arabs it conflicts with all the preconceived notions they have been socialized to believe in through years and years of reproduced stereotypes through different agents of socialization, but especially movies. When these ideas conflict, the 'nice white ladies' fascination with Abayas and high heels and brands make them disregard the fact that the people who wear such stuff still have brains.

  

vs. 

 

It is important to note that the dynamics in Qatar are different than those found in the films. In the films, the nice white ladies are from a higher social class than the students, while in NUQ, a lot of the students are from a higher class than the professors who usually come from a middle class background. 
Usually, social class can be defined as a group of people who share a similar position in society based on wealth, education, and occupational prestige. However, in Qatar, what matters the most to social class is race. So even if the professors get a lot of privileges when the come to work here, however, they are still in a lower class than the Qataris. 
Unfortunately we have some nice white ladies (and men) in NUQ and Education City, that just because they are white teaching Arabs mainly and other nationalities made them think of themselves as saviors, and just because Qatar chose to bring American Universities made them believe that we –as Arabs- aspire for “Western modernity”, and that they should teach the "spoiled Arabs and Qataris" the value of education and liberty. 




References: 
Sutherland, Jean, and Kathryn Feltey. "Social Class." Cinematic sociology: social life in film. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press, 2010. 75-79. Print.

You and Your Coffee

I hate Coffee. I do not understand why people like it or use it to wake up. It tastes so bad. Perhaps the bitter taste keeps students from drifting off to dream land. All I know is, apparently, you are as cool as the coffee cup you are holding.

In Education City, an awesome and wonderful place full of weird social habits, I noticed an interesting pattern when it comes to students. Every morning, they spend riyals and riyals on different beverages to sooth their dropping eyelids. We do not have a lot of coffee shops and cafeterias, or a lot of food options for that matter, but even so, we managed to make distinctions based on our social class.

Most Qatari people, for example, get their coffee from Starbucks. Although this sounds very general, it is true. Starbucks is fairly expensive, especially in this region, so people from the elite class will tend to buy things from there, even though there is nothing special about it. I mean other than the fact that the cafeteria’s coffee sucks so bad, there might be another reason as to why people buy water from this place even though it is located in a faraway building.

It could be as simple as this. “I am rich and I want other people to know that.” Or, “I am rich and I must buy from this place because that is what other rich people do and I do not want to stand out.” Whatever the answer may be, it is clear that in Qatar, we practice the concept of conspicuous consumption.

Like everywhere else on this planet, everyone in Qatar belongs to a class system. A class system exists when people are ranked according to characteristics such a as income. The richer you are, the higher the rank you are in. Those who have the same rank belong into the same social class. A social class is a group of people who share a similar position in society based on wealth, education, and occupational prestige. For example, rich people with well-paying jobs and a good education belong to the same social class, the loaded class.

In any event, people like to show off their rank in society and do so by buying things that say that about them. Conspicuous consumption is an attempt to display class and status through the purchase or consumption of high culture and luxury goods or services. Starbucks is expensive. We are expensive. Therefore, we must buy Starbucks. 

Now that we think we understand what's going on with the Starbucks people, let's see what kind of coffee do others buy. The second group of people, the “regular people,” tend to buy from the more reasonably priced, Gloria Jeans. They are rational, with a hint of self-love. “I’m gonna spend some money on a Latte because it is delicious. Also, people still think I’m classy.”

Then there are the smart students, those are the ones who think a cup of coffee is neither worth the distance, nor the price for social distinction. They usually buy the ready-made coffee that the cafeteria provides, downstairs, near their classes.

Although this is might sound really general, but when you go to Starbucks most of what you see is black and white (if you know what I mean) and when you go to the other places, most of what you see is expats. There is always a connection between class and race/ethnicity. It is difficult to separate the two even when we try to not be racist and stereotypical about it. It’s just what it is and it happens for so many reasons that are beyond what we can comprehend. All I know is, it’s interesting.   

This morning, I went to three different coffee shops to document the coffee drinking patterns of the EC community. 

Even though this exists everywhere, it is important to note how ridiculous it is if we actually think in that manner before we buy things. We should not try to confine ourselves in those “norms” we are creating because they will eventually suffocate us and limit us. One day we are going wake up and realize it is not about the people. It is about the coffee.

Sports Subculture at NUQ

In my freshman year, I founded Northwestern University in Qatar’s first sports team, the Men’s Football team. Back then I didn’t know I was bringing a subculture into the NUQ community. I just thought of it as a club like all the other ones that existed. However, after September 30, 2012, after a sociology class about subcultures, I realized that I should be going down in the history books as one of the first students to introduce the subculture of sports in NUQ. The girl’s basketball team, however, will be recorded as the first successful NUQ sports team. It was much more challenging for me because NUQ had plenty of girls, but very few male students.

So how is the football team a subculture? A subculture is basically a group of people within a broader or larger culture. What differentiate them are their beliefs and values, which may or may not overlap with the beliefs and values of the popular culture. In this case, I would like to refer to NUQ as the popular culture and the football team as its subculture.

The major goal of NUQ is to provide excellent education and produce individuals who will become the pioneers of the media industry in this region. The major goal of the football team, however, is to promote physical education, sportsmanship and win competitions. We see some differences in the goals and beliefs of both, but there are also some overlaps. Honesty, discipline, punctuality are values that are required by the members of both organizations.

Through the football games organized in Education City, I also observed the emergence of fandom subculture. Several people come to support their teams during tournaments and important games. The sports subculture is closely tied to the fandom subculture. Members of the sport subculture are mostly athletes and other active members in the field of sports, whereas, the fandom subculture consists of individuals who admire or are passionate about a specific sport or any activity.

Tartans Got Talent

No, it is not a TV show; but an event that took place in Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar(CMUQ) in Education City this Thursday. The event showcased the talents of the various students studying in Carnegie Mellon, which included singing; playing instruments; rapping; beat boxing; and comedy. Other than that, the event is nothing like the show; there are no buzzers involved & nobody is judging anything. This event was open for students of all universities and even parents and siblings of students studying in CMUQ.



Since we covered Globalization and Glocalization for the previous class, I was thinking of the event in terms of five major elements of globalization – Multinational corporations; Ideology of capitalism; Governments; Resistance & Consequences. Lets start with the first element- multinational corporations. Now in every event that takes place inside CMUQ comes with free food for students. For this particular event the Shater Abbas restaurant was the sole caterer. Also, I had noticed the university had spent a large budget on special lighting and other effects for the area.



Hence, in this case, the restaurant and the companies providing the lighting and the audio equipment are the multinational companies involved.

Capitalism- The involvement of the multinational companied automatically paves way for capitalism or profits. Here, the restaurants that catered for the event earned a hefty profit. As mentioned earlier, a big budget was spent for lighting and audio equipment. The company responsible earned a big profit; also I have heard that the company increases its price for the effects every year. Moreover, the same event will occur next year as well and the Student Affairs dept. are planning to make it even better than this year.


Government- The forms of government involved here were the Student Affairs Department & the student body government (Student Majlis). All the performances were signed up and approved by the Student Affairs one week prior to the event. Also, Student Affairs and the Student Majlis handled the budgeting together.


Resistance & Consequences- There were a few conservative who were frustrated and disliked when girls were dancing during one of the performances. Moreover, there were a few students who were unable to participate as they came from conservative family backgrounds and their families were against it. All this contributes to resistance aspect of globalization. The consequences are not that many; however there are a few financial fallbacks. Since a large budget was allocated for the quality of this event; the other events that will be organized in CMUQ will be low-budgeted or cancelled (For example, previously there would a be a lot of free food events where every event staged within CMUQ would be provided with few food. However, in the recent years, very few events provide food due to decreased budget).

Every year, the event attracts hundreds of students across Education City from various universities.