"Oh God, save us from sugar": an ethnographic exploration of diabetes mellitus in the United Arab Emirates

Abstract

This article explores diabetes mellitus in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), with an analysis of gift exchange and hospitality revealing how rapid environmental and economic transformations have led to chronicities of physical activity, food, and stress; uniting at a critical point in time to produce chronicities of modernity that precipitate diabetes. The high value of commensality and the association between food (particularly sugar) and honor offers insight into the motives for both the quantity and quality of food consumed. Emirati understandings of self and disease confirm the anthropological adage that disease and illness are not the same and suggests there is the potential to stem the growth of diabetes in the UAE with greater attention to structural issues through an anthropological understanding of the sociocultural conditions in which it thrives.