Distinction by design: Classed national identity in Dubai’s market economy

This article examines how national identity operates as form of a classed distinction within Dubai’s market economy, shaped by restrictive migration regimes and embedded hierarchies between nationals and non-nationals. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork at the textile market in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), this article argues that class is not simply imported by migrants from their countries of origin, but actively co-produced through legal and symbolic hierarchies in the host context. Emirati nationals, supported by legal protections and symbolic capital, occupy dominant economic and social positions in the market, transforming it into a stage for entrepreneurial display and status performance. In contrast, non-nationals navigate their structurally constrained roles, where ethnoracial status is frequently conflated with class, while gender and religion further shape the performance and contestation of classed identity. These dynamics illustrate how classed subjectivities emerge within a spectacle of exclusion and differentiation, wherein social status is performed through national belonging. By tracing the intersections, this article contributes to emerging scholarship on class formation in migration contexts, offering a deeper understanding of how national identity redefines the contours of class.