ABSTRACT
Dubai was the site of my first academic job. After completing mygraduate training in sociology, I was hired by the Department of Interna-tional Studies at the American University of Sharjah. Sharjah, located onlysix miles (ten kilometers) from Dubai, is the third largest of the seven citystates that make up the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Because of Dubai’s emergence as the regional center for trade, finance, and tourism, not to mention smuggling and human trafficking, it was an opportune place and time to teach and conduct research on the subject of globalization.
