Saudi Arabia/UAE

Born and raised in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, Manal Al Dowayan is a contemporary artist whose work focuses on the state of Saudi women and their representation. In her virtual class visit, Al Dowayan spoke about her most recent projects: the “Tree of Guardians”, which was later installed in Abu Dhabi’s Warehouse421, and “Crash”, which "explores the phenomena of women teachers from Saudi Arabia appointed to teach in remote village across the country [who] are dying in gruesome car crashes” (Al Dowayan, 2014).

Dubai

Statistics play a major role in the formation of UAE public policy as well as the country’s ranking in a variety of international development indices. This semester, the Women and Work in the Gulf class had the opportunity to meet with H.E. Abdulla Lootah and other senior officials from the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Authority (FCSA) to learn more about the data collection process in the UAE at the federal and local levels.

UAE

This semester, we had the honor of hosting H.E. Aisha Al-Suwaidi for a discussion on how public policies are shaped in the UAE. Specifically tailored to the Women and Work in the Gulf course, Al-Suwaidi presented a case study on work/life balance policy initiatives— most notably the recent introduction of extended maternity leave in the country.

KSA

Our next class speaker, Jawaher Al-Sudairy, is the Senior Program Manager for the Harvard Kennedy School collaboration with the KSA Ministry of Labor on women’s employment. Al-Sudairy illustrated the ways that gender intersects with mobility on technical, organizational and policy levels in the Kingdom.

Abu Dhabi

For our final community learning experience this fall, we invited Saba Brelvi to share her experience running an NYUAD program centered on the ethical employment of domestic workers by faculty and staff. Brelvi’s background in public health combined with her personal experiences with the domestic worker program allowed students to dive deeper into the complexities of domestic labor, which was the focus of our final class readings.