ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a failed relationship between identity, the body and medica-materia through the context of skin bleaching in the United Arab Emirates, and Dubai specifically. It presents in ethnography elsewhere, there are strong racist elements embedded within bodily alteration practices in Dubai that reflect societal biases and values. The chapter argues that while these racist sentiments provide a limited view of whiteness in Dubai, skin whitening practices are far more complex than that, and the growing practice of skin whitening is deeply rooted in local perceptions of the self, the foreigner, genetics, labour and the economy. It shows that, for many, ‘racism in a bottle’ becomes a bottled symbol of the body in itself, and whiter skin is imagined as the ‘true- self’. One way in which Emirati women navigate their role in moulding bodies is to take part in a fast- growing Asian trend of skin whitening.
