Migrant Labor in the Persian Gulf

Edited by Mehran Kamrava and Zahra Babar

Share |

April, 2012
Cloth, 276 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-231-70364-2
$31.99

In some Persian Gulf countries, expatriate workers make up as much as eighty-five to ninety percent of the population. Unsurprisingly, these states spend vast amounts of political energy managing their migrant laborers and the social, cultural, and economic changes they bring. Yet, despite this pervasive and far-reaching phenomenon, no comprehensive and easily accessible study of labor migration in the Persian Gulf currently exists.

That oversight ends with Migrant Labor in the Persian Gulf, which examines the multiple causes, processes, and consequences of labor migration in this region from the disciplinary perspectives of sociology, anthropology, political science, and economics. It critically analyzes the effects of migration on native communities through original and empirically grounded research, identifying the types and functions of formal and informal binational and multinational networks emerging from and sustaining migration patterns. The authors also explore the role of recruitment agencies, as well as look at the values and behaviors of migrant workers both before and after they set off for the Persian Gulf.

Related Subjects

• History
• International Affairs

About the Author

Mehran Kamrava is director of the Center for International and Regional Studies at Georgetown University in Qatar. He is the author of a number of journal articles and books, including, most recently, The Modern Middle East: A Political History Since the First World War and Iran’s Intellectual Revolution. He is also editor of The Nuclear Question in the Middle East, The Political Economy of the Persian Gulf, The New Voices of Islam: Rethinking Politics and Modernity, and, with Manochehr Dorraj, Iran Today: An Encyclopedia of Life in the Islamic Republic. Zahra Babar is assistant director of research at the Center for International and Regional Studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar. Her current research interests lie in gender and development, Persian Gulf migration policy, and Gulf Cooperation Council integration.

top of page