Research, ideas, and leadership for a more secure, peaceful world

Past Event
Seminar

Migrant Labor, National Security, and Political Mobilization: A Case Study of the United Arab Emirates

Open to the Public

This seminar examines how migrant labor impacts democratization processes in the United Arab Emirates, where non-citizens comprise over 96 percent of the labor force. Unlike previous studies that show how stringent citizenship policies impede the social mobility and political organization of migrant groups, the seminar will explain how migration policies also shape the way citizens mobilize politically.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

Date: Time: - Location: Littauer Building - Belfer Center Library, Room 369
Migrant laborers working in the construction industry wait for their buses at the end of the working day in the Dubai Marina area, May 1, 2006 in Dubai, UAE. Migrant laborers are more than 2/3 of Dubai's population.

About

This seminar examines how migrant labor impacts democratization processes in the United Arab Emirates, where non-citizens comprise over 96 percent of the labor force. Unlike previous studies that show how stringent citizenship policies impede the social mobility and political organization of migrant groups, the seminar will explain how migration policies also shape the way citizens mobilize politically. The research details how elites in the federal security apparatus have adopted a range of formal and informal institutions that prevent migrant workers from permanently settling and becoming citizens. The speaker will argue that by enforcing temporary migration policies, the federal security apparatus has been able to consolidate its power over the other Emirates and adapt the tactics of migrant unsettlement to respond to contestations by its own citizens. The research is based on eighteen months of ethnographic and archival fieldwork in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.