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.
PAST EVENT
Migrant Labor, National Security, and Political Mobilization: A Case Study of the United Arab Emirates
Brown Bag Lunch
Series: International Security Brown Bag Seminar
Open to the Public - Belfer Center Library, Littauer-369
October 25, 2012
12:15-2:00 p.m.
| Speaker: | Noora Lori, Research Fellow, International Security Program |
Related Project: International Security
Description:
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.
Contact:
ISP Program Coordinator
International Security Program,
79 John F. Kennedy St., Mailbox 53,
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
HARVARD Kennedy School
Email: susan_lynch@hks.harvard.edu
Phone: 617-496-1981
Fax: 617-495-8963
Url: http://www.belfercenter.org/ISP/
