Migrant Labor in the Persian Gulf

Published in collaboration with the Center for International and Regional Study at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar, this book is a collection of essays that aims to offer a different perspective on the way we view migrant labour in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. The chapters in the book come from a variety of disciplines including geography, political science, anthropology, and sociology, all complicating the simplistic economic rationality narrative that places labour supply and demand as the main stimulus of migration cycles. The authors’ aim is to provide a more “comprehensive and nuanced picture of labour migration in the Persian Gulf”. (p. 13). The introductory chapter written by the editors begins with an overview of the main theoretical paradigms used in migration studies and as applied to the case of the Persian Gulf, thereby setting up the theoretical framework for the remaining chapters. They argue that “migration is a complex process with its own internal logic,” and it is the task of scholars to question the “hegemonic discourses” that oversimplify and reduce it to a question of labour. (pp. 13-14)