Future Perfect/Present Tense

Future Perfect/Present Tense examines the relations between migrants and the Emirati individuals and institutions that sponsor them. Divided by culture, language, and status, the two groups harbour opposing visions of a perfect future. The migrants dream of success in Abu Dhabi, of providing for their families in recompense for years of sacrifice far from home. On the contrary, the Emiratis imagine a migrant exodus, after which foreigners will no longer outnumber them. But a migrant-free future will never come. Maintaining the scale of development already achieved will necessarily require a large foreign workforce, and very few families are willing to contemplate life without maids, cooks, and drivers. Meanwhile, both populations are trapped in a present that is often tense, amidst security concerns about particular nationalities and worries about the erosion of Emirati culture. Jane Bristol-Rhys has produced a unique work of ’embedded ethnography.’ Future Perfect/Present Tense is the product of fifteen years of interviews and close-range observations of the continuing gulf between the UAE’s tense present and perfect future.