Global Citizenship

I am often confronted with the puzzling question "where are you from?" Hmm.. this seems like it should be an easy one, shouldn't it? I was born and raised in Doha, Qatar, in 1991. My dad was born in New York, moved to Canada, finished his last year of high school in Egypt, and came to Qatar, where he remains to this day. My mother was born in Qatar, and both of my grandparents have mixed national backgrounds.



I went to a British kindergarten, an American primary and secondary school, and an American Jesuit university. I speak predominately Arabic with my mom and predominately English with my dad, and travel often, exposing myself to different cultures and languages. So whenever I'm confronted by the topic in a conversation, I usually announce, proudly and with a sheepish grin, "I guess I'm a global citizen then."



People often discount such a statement as too cheesy or cliche; however, rare is it when an individual realizes the implications of such a statement. I'm not saying I'm profound or anything, I'm just a byproduct of this global culture, of the phenomenon obsessively termed globalization by the masses. It connotes Western ideological domination over the East and Northern economic supremacy over the South. However, in his book Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture, sociology professor Roland Robertson, described the process of globalization as "the compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole," and sociologists Albrow and King define globalization as "all those processes by which the peoples of the world are incorporated into a single world society." Waters concedes that it is a "social process in which the constraints of geography on economic, political, social and cultural arrangements recede, in which people become increasingly aware that they are receding and in which people act accordingly." I see this everyday in Qatar; expatriate, or non-Arab/non-Muslim kids saying insh'Allah or getting karak,



or a Corvette with an American flag bumper sticker driven by a young Qatari male, or a non-married Arab couple walking and holding hands. More and more everyday cultural norms are readjusted and boundaries redrawn. The sheer proliferation of mixed-sex education in the Middle East shows the ideological rearrangement between what once might have been mores or even taboos (such as having Qatari men and women in the same classroom socializing outside of an appropriate cultural context). The fact that I sit in the atrium of Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, where education based on the Western Jesuit experience is imported from the United States of America to Qatar, writing on a laptop that was manufactured in another part of the world, wearing clothes from designers that claim to be Italian but have factories in China and India. All our societies are connected on a microscopic level, and our ancient cultural heritage, although to be held with pride and regarded as majestic, has slowly changed and molded itself with the proliferation of mass media and travel, exposing a majority of people in all corners of the world to an ever-flowing milieu. For our last class, on Wednesday, we discussed functionalist theory, which views that different social environments maintain an orderly and consistent status quo, where people actively endeavor to maintain stability and order. David Grazian believes that popular culture is functional for society, acting as an agent that maintains stability the systematic nature of social worlds. Popular culture, accordingly, includes rituals and totems that are shared across the world through the appropriately titled "popular culture." Rituals are cultural acts of solidarity, social cohesion, and rebellion, according to Grazian, and that they enable groups to gather and enforce their collective identity. Through globalization and mass media, especially through popular mobilization media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook, we see people that would never otherwise have met build relationships and experiences vicariously. They become desensitized and their sense of understanding of the world they inhabit expands outside their immediate national sphere of influence, and a supra-culture that transcends national or regional boundaries is developed. Popular culture, as base and denigrating as it can get in some cases, unites people through ideas, songs, dance, blogs, personal pages, and other forms of expression, forming a massive culture paralleling the consumer culture, although more and more we are connected by ideas in lieu of commercial products.

Bibliography Robertson, Roland. Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage, 1992. Waters, Malcolm. Globalization. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2001. Albrow, Martin, and Elizabeth King. Globalization, Knowledge and Society: Readings From International Sociology. London: Sage Publications, 1990.

Northwestern University

A couple of weeks ago, I visited Northwestern University’s main campus in Evanston, Chicago. It was my first time, and thus was curious to compare it to Qatar’s campus. I was extremely surprised with large number of students involved in extra curricular activities and clubs, and most importantly their respect towards Northwestern’s traditions and rituals. During today’s class, I thought the functionalist theory was extremely similar to the social structure in NUE. The campus is stable, orderly and systematic. Everybody has a specific role and are divided into groups; resulting with the lively and outspoken campus we have today. They all collaborate together and respect one another’s opinions, even though they may not agree with it. For example, there are many accapella groups, sororities and frat houses spread across campus, and although each group may have different personalities, they all acknowledge each other in a mature manner. I believe this campus also relates to the functionalist theory because without the help and organization of these students, professors and faculty, Northwestern university wouldn’t be moving forward. The campus would not be stable or as productive. Even social problems such as two clubs fighting over the historical Northwestern rock can make a positive contribution to the society. This will motivate them to stick to the rules to see if the other group will give up on guarding the treasured totem. It will also allow the Daily Northwestern to have a story to write about. Another concept that we covered in class today, which reminded me of Northwestern’s main campus, was the idea of collective effervescence. During my trip, there was a baseball game that is extremely popular amongst Northwestern students. There are a certain number of seats saved for students in NUE and usually there is an extremely large turn out. During this event, there is a shared feeling of identity in which each student experiences waves of similar emotions and a sense of togetherness. They are all rooting for Chicago and wear Northwestern jerseys and sweatshirts to support their team. This is also considered a ritual as it forces students from different groups and organizations to gather together and reinforce their collective identity. Why do we have students, professors and faculty in Northwestern University and what do they contribute to that specific community? Why do we have different organizations and clubs? Why is there a different positions and roles for every individual? Without this structure, Northwestern University would not be able to manage all of their students or provide everyone with an activity that meets their needs and expectations. Although many sociologists criticize this theory, I personally believe it is an excellent fit for this university. Photos: The first photo is one of the many acapella groups in Northwestern. They are called Purple Haze. The second photo is how the rock looked like after we painted it. The third and fourth photo are from online sources

The Dilemma of Being a Female!

     The gender rules in Qatar are very discriminative toward females in so many aspects. Ladies know these aspects and they also know not to cross them. I’ll provide few examples of those rules in this blog and I’m going to analyze it in such a way to reflect what are those rules. The book "Cinematic Sociology" mentioned how the social construction of any society categorizes how people act toward each other based on gender. This provides the people of a guidance of how to interact between each other as a society.

     The first example, is about the workers in Qatar; all of them are males, like the construction workers and the security guardes in Education City. There are only two exceptions, like, the female security guard in Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar and in Northwestern University in Qatar Studio. Even the workers outside of the studio building are males. The logic behind this is the idea of "building" and "protection" is often associated with males.

     Another example is when I went to the desert with Northwestern Evanston exchange students. There was no Qatari females who practiced falconry, which is a sport exclusive to men.

     However, a Germen lady arrived and I was very impressed by her. She had embraced the Qatari culture by covering her hair with a Qatari scarf that is initially designed to be worn by men. Its not just that she works in a field that dominated by men, but she also embraced the aspect of how men dress. Her ability to redefine the social construction was, again, very impressive.

     In the year that I have driven a car , I never seen a woman in a car wash or drop her car off by the garage, which is the third aspect of how females are discriminated against by the social construction that society created. This is due to the mentality that this is a "man’s job" to drive.  So I decided for the sake of experiment, to go there one more time and see how it is like.

     What I had anticipated was correct. There was no women there. It is worthy to mention that ladies can break the cultural rule sometimes and go there for a car wash, if they are willing to endure the awkwardness of workers and other drivers staring at them with one question at their minds: "What the hell are you doing here?!"

Souq Wagif - A Modern Nostalgia

  "You don't really need modernity in order to exist totally and fully. You need a mixture of modernity and tradition" Theodore Bikel.

For this blog I’m going to be talking about Souq Wagif in Doha. I will be explaining why and how was the Qatari government successful in blending aspects of modernity along with traditions.


Souq Wagif (The Standing Market) was once a place where Bedouins traded and bargained during weekends, and is a now a masterpiece of architecture, art and cultural heritage. Thousands of people from all around the region still visit Souq Wagif to purchase traditional goods such as spices, food, jewelry, clothes, perfumes and even falcons.

It was first built more than hundred years ago, however, it was renovated and rebuilt in 2004. The unique thing about how it was renovated is that they used traditional building material as well traditional Qatari architectural techniques.

They did that to preserve the authenticity of the Souq and its general appearance, although they have added more buildings for example, the Art Gallery and Center. The aspects of modernity were obvious for instance, Souq Wagif has three world class hotels, cafes and restaurants, both international and traditional Qatari food

I decided that if I were to find out how people really feel about the changes that were made, I have to ask those who directly effected. In this case it was the shop owners. I conducted an interview with two textiles shop owners.


Surprisingly, they both had different opinions regarding the Souq Wagif’s past and presence. The older shop owner preferred the old golden days, the younger one embraced modernity. They both agreed that modernity did make their lives easier.

Modernity is the result of industrialization, and different generations have different opinions regarding how negative or positive our post-tradition present is. Can modernity blend well with traditions? Of course, as they it gets the best of both worlds. Qatar’s economy is booming and even though our society is being restructured and modernized, our government is encouraging us to maintain our traditional values and rich cultural heritage.

In Souq Wagif, the old meets new, the past meets present and the locals meet foreigns as a result of globalization and Mcdonaldization in a sense.

P.S. The photos were included in the video.

Globalization and Cultural Hegemony

Music is probably one of the most effective sociological and communication tools. Depending on the kind of music, it could appeal to individuals of almost every age group, gender and ethnicity. With the advent of the Internet and other means of telecommunication, music can also be appealing across boundaries. In short, music is now subject to globalization and this has been the case for the past several decades.


I love hip-hop music and closely follow artists like Eminem, The Game, Tupac etc, and thanks to the globalization of music, I am able to enjoy the same music that people from other nations listen to. Cultural globalization involves some sort of cultural exchange between different geographies that directly results in these countries enjoying foreign goods. These goods may not be solely materialistic goods, it could also be non-materialistic goods like music or lifestyles for instance. This process can take varying forms and produce a multitude of outcomes. According to some sociologists, this expanding transnational cultural exchange will in turn be profitable to certain countries, and in most cases, the United States seems to be yielding the most out of this cultural globalization. In fact, it would be right to say that the United States has established, knowingly or unknowingly, a cultural hegemony through its various music genres.

From fast-food culture to listening to hip-hop music, I believe that I am a part of America’s cultural hegemony. Although I listen to several American music artists, it is not necessary that an American should listen to Indian music (I am from India, FYI). Therefore, we see that cultural flow is only one-way, from dominant culture to peripheral culture, but not the other way round. By using tools like the internet and various applications, people around the world can tune in to listen to any music you want. I recently happened to learn about an application called Spotify, through which we can get access to almost all the music in the world even in your cellphone. I believe applications like these contribute a lot to the phenomenon of globalization.

So, is cultural globalization a positive phenomenon? Or is it just too overwhelming to know that you have been culturally imperialized? Something for the readers to think about.

The Race Mind at the Races

Image taken by - Jassim Al Rumaihi

For this week I decided to go out for one of the flat races here at the Equestrian and Races Club in Doha. The aim was to look at the whole celebration from a sociological point of view, and how can race and ethnicity be interpreted. I got there and started to observe with all the vocabs we learnt in class in mind.

As I was looking around, I took one of the races booklets that had all the details of the races that were going to take part. I opened the first page and it had a list of names of all the people involved that helped in organizing the event. Some of those were long, with four or five names in one single line. Other was shorter having only the first and second name. In Qatar, not all Qataris are categorized as one ethnic group. Within the Qataris themselves there are many groups that share some ethnic origins in terms of having a shared ancestry. For example, Al Rumaihi’s would be one group, and each individual within that tribe would affiliate to the other as a person with an ethnic bond.

Then there are larger groups that have been tagged by the society. For example you would have Eaal Elgebael which translates to "sons of tribes" and they are groups of people that share Arab roots whether it stems from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, or other parts of the Arab world. Another known tag name are the Hollah, and they are Arabs that have immigrated to Persia for a while and returned after that to the Arabian nations in the Gulf. There are also other categorizations such as Hathar and Baddo or Bedouins.

What is interesting though is what I found in the second page of the booklet. When I turned to it it was a list of horses, each with its own number and each with its own record. The top of the page was titled in bold letter “Pure Arabians”, and that made me think. Do horses really care about their origins as humans do? Of course not. Their brains may be considered as less developed than humans by scientists. Yet, their eyes are blind enough to see no color line.

Misunderstood Societies

Food is common between all nations, societies and cultures. It is a way in which certain nations stand out. For example, the sensual curries and spices of India, the rice dominated plates of China. The noodle swirls of Japan, The pasta and cheese of Italy and France, Also the diverse colours of the gulf.

There is always food involved but the focus right now is on the sociological aspect of consuming this food. The way people of certain nations consume food is completely different from one another. Yes, many can be having similar meals due to globalization; however, they still maintain traditional dishes and ways of eating.

One sign of this ritual is in the Middle East, more particularly the Gulf. The people use their hands to consume rice when at a gathering, in other nations that is considered offensive or not of classiness and would receive negative sanctions from foreigners. It is completely acceptable, even so encouraged that people use their hands to consume rice in Gulf States. But never forget to use your right hand, or else you would be offending the locals!

Using utensils in The United States is acceptable more so than using your hands when eating lunch or dinner. As a matter of fact, you would receive positive sanctions when using utensils as they are seen to be cleaner and more efficient in consuming food. Especially something that can be as messy as pasta or soup.

Chinese and Japanese cultures use a form of utensils, called chopsticks. They are two so that the food (mostly noodles) can be taken up from the plate and taken to your mouth. There are certain ways in which you have to learn to use chopsticks in order to master the art of using them.

In conclusion, the ways in which people consume food can be different, but it all depends upon globalization. Perhaps one day we can all adapt to all sorts of ways to eat. Most importantly remove all sanctions imposed upon those who don’t follow rituals of eating.

Sending Messages Through Songs

Considering the fact that we’re living in an era full of all sorts of sociological phenomena and “modern issues”, there’s clearly no doubt about the big role that music play in discussing and conducting such stories through their lyrics. While music is actually originated in Europe for the purpose of serving the people of highbrow culture, as well as being a handy tool for their producers (artists) and consumers (listeners) to express their suppressed love and affection, it has noticeably broadened to wider horizons.

Nowadays, music is played everywhere and in almost every sort of occasion. It’s not necessarily meant to be for special groups of people to enjoy it by attending elite or rock music concerts. Music now is played in weddings, birthday parties, restaurants, shops, and sometimes in public restrooms too! We even listen to music when we are turning on the radio while driving, as well as the background music in TV shows. But if we would consider the question of what role does music serve in the modern sociology of culture, the answers are pretty inspiring.

For instance, the best example would be presented by the King of Pop Michael Jackson with his major hit “Earth Song”, in which he expressed his sympathy toward the destruction that our planet is going through. Another valid example about socially conscious material in songs would be in the remade version of Michael Jackson’s song as well “We Are the World.” The remake version is a charity song that was sung by famous 21st century artists, in which the song was dedicated to the people of Haiti who suffered the horrible catastrophe. And finally the song “Just Stand Up” by famous pop and R&B artists, a charity song too to stand up against cancer disease. The collaborations of famous artists in these songs have certainly kept the messages they delivered persistent and more considerable due to the fact that they’re famous and their fans are always following their achievements (efficiency of secondary markets and product placements).

Furthermore, let’s not forget about inspirational songs that have jobs of spirit-lifting and changing one’s negative perceptions about life. Some of these songs are “Firework” by Katy Perry, “We Are Who We Are” by Ke$ha, “Raise Your Glass” by P!nk, “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga, and “Fly” by Hilary Duff. Most of these songs discuss a variety of the relevant sociological and psychological issues that people encounter at least once in their lifetimes, such as breaking down, feeling worthless, hating life, being stereotyped or looked down at, and the feeling of not being a productive member in a society. Some of these songs also talk about people who feel shy or ashamed to admit their sexuality, and these songs are the ones by Ke$ha and Lady Gaga.