OFF-CAMPUS ORIENTALISM: Western University Branch Campuses in the Gulf

Description

The recnet influc of American, Western European and other foreign university branch campuses in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries is sociologically significant as they cultivate oriental’persectives’ in objectives and in the way they function. While many take this development something that exerts a domino effect by improving the quality of education, others worry that it reflects yet another cycle of western imperialism. Orientalism in the context of branch campuses of western universities in the Gulf also involves the extension of particular form of knowledge production that originated in Western Europe and the US are exported or imposed upon other parts. The manifestation of oriental gaze starts with the recruitment drive in which preference is generally being given to applicants with Western European or North American university degree. This work’s concern revolves around a set of practics through which the Western university branch campuses in the GCC countries subtly endorse ‘orientalism’.

M H Iliasis Associate Professor at India Arab Cultural Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.