Dr Rafeef Ziadah's paper 'Surveillance, race, and social sorting in the United Arab Emirates' was named the best paper published in Politics Journal in 2021.
The paper looks at the United Arab Emirates (UAE) use of mass surveillance technologies, against both UAE residents and external opponents.
Whilst the UAE says that the technologies are race neutral, Ziadah argues that the technologies have an embedded racial bias which reproduce forms of state control and racial social relations.
The panel for the award commented on Ziadah's convincing arguments and the originality of the paper.
I was really pleased to hear the news that my paper was chosen as Politics best paper published in 2021. A lot of my research focusses on racialisation and infrastructure in the Middle East, and I hope my findings can foster more critical research on inequality in countries like the UAE."– Rafeef Ziadah
Ziadah is a Lecturer in Politics and Public Policy in King's Department of International Development. She is currently working on examining the impact of Gulf Cooperation Council military and commercial interventions following the 2011 Arab uprisings.
You can read the full paper through Politics Journal.
