Attendance was open to the NUS community only – Interested participants not from NUS could email meievent@nus.edu.sg.

(This event was organised by MEI’s Arabia-Asia Research Cluster, as part of its monthly internal seminar series.)

Abstract

This paper traced contemporary South Asian merchants’ networks. It focused on capital and commodity channels, build on ethnic and religious structures, spanning across Pakistan and United Arab Emirates. The two regions, Karachi and Dubai, are in a symbiotic relationship, sharing labor and capital bonds for the past several decades. For instance, in Karachi, every big merchant autobiography remains incomplete without mentioning trade from Dubai. Dubai also prefigures as a place of aspiration for the upwardly mobile mercantile community more so for the currency traders, hoarding money in tax-free financial heaven of Dubai. Built on the backdrop of the soaring oil boom and of petrodollars, the city-state of Dubai serves as a trading hub for the regional markets. Dubai’s strategic position in the geopolitical and business networks, dubbed as the new Silk Route, has proved it as a magnet for rich South Asian merchants, traders, and laborers alike. It significance has further increased with the growing political instability in large parts of South, Central Asia, and Middle East, forcing the flight of capital to foreign banks in Dubai. The shared interface of kinship, commerce, and culture between Dubai and Karachi marks a new chapter in the biography of Indian Ocean trade. Drawing on ethnographic observations of carry dealers – people transporting goods back and forth Karachi and Dubai – this paper highlighted the risks and challenges in the life of traders who bypasses the state authority to carry commodities and currencies across borders.