Transit States Labour, Migration and Citizenship in the Gulf

The states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar) form the largest destination for labour migration in the global South. In all of these states, however, the majority of the working population is composed of temporary, migrant workers with no citizenship rights.

The cheap and transitory labour power these workers provide has created the prodigious and extraordinary development boom across the region, and neighbouring countries are almost fully dependent on the labour markets of the Gulf to employ their working populations. For these reasons, the Gulf takes a central place in contemporary debates around migration and labour in the global economy.

This book attempts to bring together and explore these issues. The relationship between 'citizen' and 'non-citizen' holds immense significance for understanding the construction of class, gender, city and state in the Gulf, however too often these questions are occluded in too scholarly or overly-popular accounts of the region. Bringing together experts on the Gulf, Transit States confronts the precarious working conditions of migrants in a accessible, yet in-depth manner.

Abdulhadi Khalaf is a senior lecturer in the Sociology department at Lund University. He is regarded as a specialist in the politics of the Gulf Arab States.

Omar AlShehabi writes from Bahrain and is director of the Gulf Centre for Development Policies. He has previously worked at the World Bank and the IMF as well as McKinsey and Co. 

Adam Hanieh is Senior Lecturer in Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is author of Capitalism and Class in the Gulf Arab States (2011) an d Lineages of Revolt: Issues of Contemporary Capitalism in the Middle East (2013).