| ID | 199084 |
| Title Proper | Defying Social Inequality in the Gulf |
| Other Title Information | Skilled Survivors’ Coping Routes, Racialized Capitalism, and Temporary Filipino Migrants in the UAE |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Malit, Froilan T Jr |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | How do temporary migrants cope with social inequality in the ‘illiberal’ host states of the Global South? While mainstream scholarly work on labor migration in the Gulf has historically traced the existence of structural violence, racialized hierarchy, and social inequality imposed on temporary migrants, it also frames migrants as ‘powerless’ and ‘rule-taker’ victims. In doing so, scholars overlook the diverse coping or mobility route strategies of temporary migrants. Temporary Filipino migrants, one of the largest Gulf-based ethnic minority groups in the United Arab Emirates, have employed diverse coping mobility strategies via inter-regional transit, intra-regional transit, and irregular routes to diminish social inequality. These strategies act as tools to capitalize on their Gulf labor market experience and manipulate complex migration systems to achieve their long-term goals (i.e. acquiring Western citizenship). To examine temporary migrants’ coping mobility strategies, the article draws on twenty semi-structured interviews with Filipino migrants, and content analysis of government, policy, and local UAE and Filipino newspaper publications. The article adds to the theoretical and empirical discussions on social inequality, racial capitalism, mobility pathways, and Gulf exceptionalism by nuancing migrant victimization narratives in South-South migration and shifting the perspective of migrants as powerless recipients to active, transnational mobile agents. |
| `In' analytical Note |
Middle East Critique Vol. 34, No.2; 2025: p.307-327 |
| Journal Source | Middle East Critique 2025-06 34, 2 |