Migration and non-integration in two non-western cities: Dubai and Singapore

Abstract

According to the World Migration Report 2015 (International Organisation for Migration, 2015, p. 39), among major cities with the largest proportion of foreign-born population, Dubai and Singapore are the only two non-western cities to rank among the top 19 metropolises, mainly European, North American or Australian. The intersection of migration and urban studies constitutes an expanding field of research in which western cities are overrepresented, and scholars seem reluctant to think outside western paradigms of multiculturalism and integration when exploring the ways migrants are incorporated into global cities. Yet the demographic reality of migrant numbers and proportions suggests that there is much to be gained by training the analytical spotlight elsewhere. Along with the globalised economies of Singapore and Hong Kong, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are now among polities with the lowest prospects for the integration and permanent settlement of large migrant populations, even where migrants have become the majority of the total population (Shah, 2017). Hosting about 30 million migrants and their descendants, Gulf countries, one of the most urbanised region in the world, have become the third largest migration-receiving region from the 2000s. The GCC-Asia corridor is the largest South-South corridor, with the majority of migrants coming from Asia, especially South Asia. In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), for example, Indian and Pakistani communities outnumber the 1.1 million Emirati citizens (Bel-Air, 2018). Dubai and Singapore, and more generally Gulf and Asian cities, are interesting case studies from a comparative perspective, as they help extend our thinking about patterns of incorporation of migrants in cities beyond the hegemonic western paradigm of integration (Pagès-El Karoui, 2020). Here, we note the double meaning of integration: the Durkheimian notion of the way individuals are included in the society to achieve social cohesion, and – the definition more frequently adopted for migrants – the provision of pathways to include migrants as part of the nation-state through processes of naturalisation. In both senses and at various levels, Dubai and Singapore are exemplars of non-integration, unveiling the contradictory logics of inclusion and exclusion. The comparison between Dubai (3.3 million inhabitants) and Singapore (5.7 million), two highly diverse cities, is instructive in demographic terms. At 92 per cent, the migrant share of the population in Dubai is a world record, while non-citizens account for 43 per cent of the population in Singapore (World Economic Forum, 2017). This comparison is all the more interesting in that Dubai was nicknamed ‘Singapore of the Middle