Abstract:

The Gulf emirate of Dubai is highly dependent on migrant labor, with 85 per cent of its population non-citizen foreigners.The overwhelming majority are men from South India who labor in low-waged jobs in the booming construction and hospitality industries. They are integral to Dubai’s recent efforts to become a ‘global city’, but are simultaneously excluded from its economic successes. Most existing research on low waged migrants in the Gulf emphasizes the conditions of structural violence under which they work, and their physical and social exclusion within the metropolitan contexts in which they live and labor. This talk interrogates these uni-dimensional narratives of victimhood through two interrelated questions. Despite knowledge of discrimination and the violence of debt bondage, why do these men continue to move? And, how do migrants come to terms with living as marginalized urban residents within a space that is portrayed as uncaring and extremely unequal? Through unpacking these puzzles, this talk distills key insights from my recent book Migrant Dubai: Low wage Workers and the Construction of a Global City (2016). In doing so, it extends understandings of contemporary Arabia-Asia migrations, urban subaltern subjectivities and informal social networks. More information on the book can be found here.