Gulf states like Qatar and the UAE have built a system where migrant workers perform the productive labor while being stripped of their legal and human rights.
Migration policies do not solely determine how a state receives foreign workers. They also shape how labor is structured, how different rights are assigned, and how states react to the demands of labor. A combination of temporary visas, employer-sponsored immigration, rotation contracts, and restrictions on permanent residency can construct a labor system that normalizes political exclusion. The Gulf Cooperation Council states, particularly the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar, are extreme cases of this phenomenon. In these countries, a large number of the economically active population are migrants, and they perform the majority of the productive work, yet are still politically excluded. There is a significant portion of the population that is economically active and politically absent. The work performed does not equate to social membership and labor is structured through segmentation, rotation, and legal precariousness.
This article explores how Qatar and the UAE separate labor from political belonging. The potential political contribution of a class entity have been historically tied to attributes such as continuity, collective experience, and collective visibility[1]. These states structure labor as temporally and legally uncertain. Migrant workers’ collective attempts at political contribution as a working class (e.g. strikes, protests) are responded to predominantly through the administrative or legal channels, as opposed to the political. The division of citizenship, or citizenship as a division, shapes the frameworks of workers’ collective attempts to recognition. What does collective action look like when labor is separated from belonging? What happens to political structuring when the feeling of exploitation is there, but not the collective sustained experience? Is the Gulf phenomenon an extreme case, or can it be seen as an emerging paradigm in the governance of work? The following analysis attempts to answer these questions.
The labor systems used in the UAE and Qatar developed as a response to specific historical circumstances. The modern formation of these Gulf states occurred as a result of imperial treaty-making, British protection, and subsequent oil-fueled nation-building. The UAE’s emirates coalesced under the Trucial State system[1] [2] , a framework established through 19th-century truces and protection agreements that bound the coastal sheikhdoms to British imperial power while preserving local ruling families. The federation was formed in 1971. While Qatar moved from Ottoman control to British protection and achieved formal independence in 1971. The Gulf is a region of paradox, shaped in part by the artificial nature of its modern states: colonial formations that depend on imported labor while presenting themselves as coherent, natural national communities. It is a site of expansive movement (including forced labor of foreign nationals) yet is politically consolidated so as to draw a stark line of bourgeois entitlement toward abused and displaced foreign nationals, and, as the case of Qatar exemplifies, in a truncated geopolitical unit, absentees paradoxically call the nation-state home. Understanding this history is important to appreciate that Gulf citizenship is not merely a legal status, but a means of stratifying entitlement to state protection, the distributive political benefits of oil and a form of recognition that is exclusively available to a defined population. It is in this context that control over migration was integrated into the structure of citizenship. The Kafala system, in its control and regulation of migrant labor without the possibility of citizenship and permanent residency, has its origins in British colonial rule and has been refined to exemplify a system of social control. In this regard, the foreign worker is not simply outside the Gulf state. The foreign worker is one of the elements that render the state governable.
Imported Labor Forces and National Working Classes
In the 19th century, organizing and controlling politically motivated labor was at the centre of the industrial capitalist system’s agenda. In the majority of cases, permanent, politically organized, and spatially concentrated workers had the ability to mobilize and take collective action[2]. It is within this context in which Marx and Engels' definition of the working class came to fruition. Through industrialized formations such as unions, political parties, and rapidly emerging socio-political movements, the industrial workforce managed to address a political gap. This convergence of labor, geography, and citizenship positioned the social and political demands of organized working class populations more effectively, over time. Prolonged struggles, as opposed to immediate demands, characterized the establishment of social protection policies and innovations in public welfare. Constituting the political continuum of labor, the memory of grievances, and the presence of a politically organized working class, as a major mobilizer against the takeover of industrial capitalism[3]. This phenomenon has shifted drastically as a result of neoliberal economic policies and their global integrations as of the late 20th century. New patterns of labor organization that emphasized flexibility and mobility also sought to reduce labor costs. One response was to cross-border production displacement and the other was to recruit workers under conditions that constrained settlement and political integration. In this context, the importance of migration policies increased. Structuring labor mobility and restraining access to longer-term rights were achieved via temporary visas, seasonal permits, employer sponsorship systems, and the criminalization of overstaying. Workers could enter the labor market, but were restricted in their ability to remain, organize, and/or make claims. Being present in employment no longer meant being politically part of the system[4].
The Gulf states show these dynamics very clearly. In the UAE and Qatar, migration is not viewed as a transitional phase, but instead, migration is an integral part of the political economy. It has been estimated that in the UAE, Emiratis represent a small portion of the total population while South Asians represent the largest group, encompassing Indians, Bangladeshis, and Pakistanis, in addition to sizable Egyptian and Filipino populations. Publicly accessible estimates suggest Qatar is similarly reliant on imported manpower, noting especially large communities of Indians, Nepalese, Bangladeshis, Filipinos, and people from Egypt, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan, in addition to Sudanese, Ethiopians, and Kenyans, as well as people from Ghana and the rest of the world. In both countries, Asia, with significant parts of Africa, overwhelmingly supplies the labor force[5][6]. With political membership remaining highly confined and in many of these countries, the overwhelming majority of the working class across construction, domestic work, transport, hospitality, and services are immigrants. However, their presence is seen as economically essential and politically temporary[7]. Collective actions are broken up, but the issues raised by workers are not resolved. The newly arrived workers are placed under the same conditions as their predecessors, while the previous struggles of those workers are erased from the collective memory[8]. These scenarios indicate the tight interconnection between migration regimes and the formation of social classes: Immigrant employees are critical to economic functioning, but there are very stringent limits to their capacity to organize socially and politically.
Qatar and the UAE: Labor Without Belonging
In both Qatar and the UAE, overseas workers are employed in construction, domestic help, cleaning, transportation, hospitality, sanitation, and logistics and other sectors that require manual labor[9]. Nationals, however, are rarely found in these positions and if so only in administrative and supervisory roles in the public service and security. This also does more than allocate roles. It politically distances workers from people. With most of the working class being non-nationals, the productive activity that sustains the state, operates without politically integrating the working class. Citizens enjoy the privilege of access to public service, state-sponsored entitlements, and the politically emblematic privileges of nationality, while the overwhelming majority of the state’s productive labor, that is, the prosperity of the state, is provided by migrant labor[10]. The fusion of labor and legal dependency is sustained through institutional mechanisms[11]. The Kafala system, or employer sponsorship, links a worker’s legal right to stay in a country to a single employer and greatly restricts that worker’s ability to change jobs, say no to mistreatment, or leave an exploitative situation without an absence of risk. But this system is not only exclusionary, but it is also racialized. In the Gulf, nationality functions as an informal social hierarchy of who is worthy of what type of job, what pay, what living arrangements, and what type of respect[12].
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted these issues. Many migrant workers in labor camps were subjected to even tighter surveillance and more restrictive conditions. Economic goals took precedence over public health or migrant health, and workers had very few options to advocate for better living conditions[13]. People who opposed the government or tried to leave camps were given punishment rather than help. In 2014, migrant construction workers in Qatar protested the non-payment of wages while the building of the FIFA World Cup infrastructure was in its initial stages. Their response was rapid: protesters were arrested, and then subsequently, they were detained and deported[14]. The workers who built the World Cup were never seen as a part of the nation that was hosting the World Cup. This demonstrated the extent to which the lives of migrants were controlled through policies and systems rather than through the ability to vote or express their political views, changing the relation between work and politics. In this context, collective action among migrant workers is often regarded as being outside the realm of possible political dialogue. They occupy the territory, but are usually excluded from the political community. This situation can create a severe imbalance. Migrant workers must follow the law but are not able to participate in law-making. When they push back, it often cannot be understood as political. The state does not have to counter their claims. It merely has to apply the rules.
Replaceability, Foreignness, and the Limits of Collective Action
Some outcomes of collective behavior rely on how the demands are structured and the standing of those making the demands. Citizenship, legal status, and formal memberships, influence where people’s participation is politically legitimate. For the purposes of this analysis, Jacques Rancière’s work is appropriate because, politically, it begins when people with no place try to assert themselves as equals and demand attention. Regarding migrant labor, the visibility of the workers is limited to being laboring bodies. In most instances, when migrant laborers act collectively, they are not viewed as a political body who is entitled to justice, but as a nuisance that needs to be managed[15].
In the legal and regulatory systems controlling protest and the organization of labor in the UAE and Qatar, these differences can be noted. Laws regulating migrant worker collective action, including strikes and public gatherings, are very specific. Instead of labor disputes, these actions are treated as breaches of contract or public order concerns. The focus is on containment, dispersal, or removal, rather than mediation. Authority responses, in the case of migrant worker strikes over unpaid work and unsafe working conditions, are more likely to focus on detention and deportation than to utilize collective bargaining or adjudication. Such responses limit the recurrence of such actions and the sustained engagement in them[16]. These responses can be understood in the context of Hannah Arendt and the condition of statelessness. They have legal obligations, but they have no legal or political rights. When they protest and contest working conditions, they do so through the enforcement of legal rules, not through a political process. Arendt claimed: “The fundamental deprivation of human rights is manifested first and above all in the deprivation of a place in the world which makes opinions significant and actions effective. Something much more fundamental than freedom and justice, which are rights of citizens[17].” In this context, ‘deportation’ is an ongoing administrative response to conflict. Removal from the territory closes the immediate conflict but it does not resolve the substantive issue of the claim. Therefore, the workers’ grievances do not circulate or accumulate to sustain continuity.
Étienne Balibar's interpretation of the phrase 'borders within' can be very useful here. The border is not only at the outer edge of the territory. It runs through the workplace, neighborhoods, and even through bodies. It decides whose suffering is political and whose is not[18] . For example, migrant workers are often on the wrong side of that internal border. There are also ideological consequences resulting from the delegitimization of revolt. Migrants are often said to be resisting an act of 'gratitude.' The workers are seen to be 'given opportunities' and are expected to accept that. Acts of protest are seen as a betrayal and not a demand that is expected. This is not simply a moralistic view, it is a political and ideological bias in favor of those who profit from exploitation, one that denies migrant workers the legitimacy of dissent and casts their protests not as a shared struggle against oppression, but as disorder to be contained[19]. The state, in a sense, isn't only repressive of revolt. It also tries to ensure that the act of revolt is not termed as such. Citizenship can be viewed as a moral accomplishment, a cultural identity, or a legal standing. To liberal discourse, it is the reward for the integration of an individual, a sign of their contribution, or the basis of their rights[20] . However, in an analytical light, citizenship can be seen as less of an ethical horizon and more of a governance technology. Citizenship can work as a means of structuring class relations and organizing a state’s allocation of legitimacy, as well as determining who can translate their economic existence into political entitlements.
In addition to the legal inability to become a citizen, these states’ migrant systems are characterized by a high degree of replaceability. Because the recruitment system is designed for perpetual turnover, migrant workers arrive and leave (or cycle out) at pre-determined intervals. Operational processes and roles are contractually defined and standardized, and the system anticipates attrition. There is also a cycle of production to ensure that it continues to function, regardless of the revolving labor composition[21]. This prompts a set of questions regarding the conditions under which collective action can take place. What kinds of power are left when labor withdrawal can be supplanted without negotiation? How does the potential for removal through contract termination or deportation affect willingness to resist collectively? Replaceability and foreignness as a legal and social condition seem to be intricately connected. There is a stereotype of migrant workers as being present to work and not to belong, described with a sense of temporariness, obligation, and docility. What conditions must be present when workers described as guests make a legitimate demand, foregoing the expectation that they are being bad guests? How do thankfulness and hospitality narratives diminish the potential of collective action? What form of collective action is even possible for workers when their grievances must more often than not be addressed individually through employers, the courts, or their respective governments? What impact does political exclusion have on shared experience and the learning process from one generation of workers to the next? Are the UAE and Qatar an extreme case or can they be seen as an emerging paradigm in the governance of work? What conditions could prevail for replaceability, temporariness, or legal subordination to be seen as an ordinary rather than an exceptional arrangement? From this perspective, it is reasonable to raise concerns regarding how the plausibility of practices formerly seen as specific to some political economies as viable options to deal with labor and dissent will change. In this case, how does the assumption of permanence shape the meanings of citizenship, belonging, and engagement, and what kinds of collective agency exist when the conditions that facilitate durable labor politics are receding?
Conclusion
The examples of the UAE and Qatar demonstrate that systemic exploitation does not in itself guarantee sustained collective uprising. It is crucial how the labor is structured, who the labor organizing system excludes/ includes, and to what extent the producers of social wealth can politically identify and mobilize themselves. In these Gulf countries, the colonial and postcolonial construction of the state created a system where the political and economic privileges of citizenship were highly restricted, while economic exploitation of the majority of labor was done through a sponsorship, rotation and removability system of precarious legality. Migrant workers become industrially active while politically remaining passive, and their discontent is more met, not politically, but through bureaucratic control. What is created is not merely a system of temporary labor but a racialized political economy. South Asian and African workers are actively involved in construction, services, transport, domestic work, and hospitality, but are still structurally excluded from the labor market and are of lower rank in the labor market. Their grievances may be acknowledged, but they rarely end up as part of a collective, garner institutional recognition, or form a lasting political framework. Thus, migration policies demonstrate that citizenship is not merely a legal status, but rather a political boundary that defines one’s visibility in the political sphere. Thus, the Gulf is not only a regional case; it exemplifies what happens when states disassociate labor from belonging and where the concept of replaceability is systematized as a form of governance.
Ritaj Ibrahim, A researcher on gender and SWANA Politics, and the co-founder of Kun organisation.
[1] E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (London: Penguin, 1963), 712-713.
[2] Thompson, “The Making of the English Working Class,” 712-713.
[3] Thompson, “The Making of the English Working Class,” 357.
[4] David Harvey, "Neoliberalism as Creative Destruction," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 610, no. 1 (2007), https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716206296780
[5] Migration Policy Institute, "United Arab Emirates," Country Resource, Migration Information Source, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/country-resource/united-arab-emirates
[6] Migration Policy Institute, "Qatar," Country Resource, Migration Information Source, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/country-resource/qatar
[7] Hamza, "Migrant Labor in the Arabian Gulf: A Case Study of Dubai, UAE," 97.
[8] Neha Vora, Impossible Citizens: Dubai's Indian Diaspora (Durham: Duke University Press, 2013), 75-78.
[9] Martin Baldwin-Edwards, "Labor Immigration and Labor Markets in the GCC Countries: National Patterns and Trends," Kuwait Programme on Development, Governance and Globalisation in the Gulf States 15 (2011): 12–17, http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/55239/
[10] Baldwin-Edwards, "Labor Immigration and Labor Markets in the GCC Countries: National Patterns and Trends," 16.
[11] Vora, “Impossible Citizens: Dubai's Indian Diaspora,” 4-5.
[12] Anh Nga Longva, "Keeping Migrant Workers in Check: The Kafala System in the Gulf," Middle East Report 29, no. 211 (1999) https://www.merip.org/1999/06/keeping-migrant-workers-in-check/
[13] Amnesty International, COVID-19 makes Gulf countries’ abuse of migrant workers impossible to ignore, (2020) https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2020/04/covid19-makes-gulf-countries-abuse-of-migrant-workers-impossible-to-ignore/
[14] Amnesty International, The dark side of migration: Spotlight on Qatar’s construction sector ahead of the World Cup, (2013) https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde22/010/2013/en/
[15] Jacques Rancière, Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy, trans. Julie Rose (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), 30.
[16] Amnesty International, Reality Check: The State of Migrant Workers' Rights with Four Years to Go Until the Qatar 2022 World Cup (2019), https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde22/9758/2019/en/
[17] Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1951), 296.
[18] Étienne Balibar, Politics and the Other Scene, trans. Christine Jones, James Swenson, and Chris Turner (London: Verso, 2002), 93.
[19] Abdoulaye Diop et al., "Attitudes of Qatari Nationals Toward Expatriates," International Journal of Public Opinion Research 37, no. 4 (2025), https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/edaf045
[20] Christian Joppke, Citizenship and Immigration (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010), 149.
[21] Kali Robinson, "What Is the Kafala System?," Council on Foreign Relations, (November 20, 2020), https://www.cfr.org/backgrounders/what-kafala-system
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