While the threat of a boycott obviously can only hope to be effective if those who do the threatening have a relatively high profile and hence plenty of symbolic capital in the US cultural field and/or that of the Middle East, there is an online petition at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/gulflabor/ that anyone can sign if they want to register their support and contribute to showing how widespread the rejection of these practices is.
This initiative is an interesting case in a number of respects. It counters one form of globalization with another; it opposes to art as circulation of image-commodities an investigation into the conditions of arts seemingly magical apparition in yet another place or nonplace.I hope to write more about this boycott at some point in the future. For the time being, more information is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/arts/design/guggenheim-threatened-with-boycott-over-abu-dhabi-project.html
And (in German) here:
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/globaler-kunststreik-guggenheim-in-abu-dhabi-nicht-um-jeden-preis-1.1074215
