ABSTRACT

The kafala system of migrant sponsorship prevalent in the Middle East has long been the subject of scholarly and public scrutiny, due to the high level of reported abuse of migrant workers. Prevalent analyses of the kafalaview it as a rentier system that offers economic opportunities for both non-national migrant workers and citizen sponsor-employers, despite the inherent structural asymmetries that bias the overall economic benefits towards the latter. However, the racialised incorporation of African and Asian migrant workers within the kafala is rarely considered in such analyses. Drawing on intersectional, critical race perspectives, this paper ‘de-centres the white gaze’ in the scholarship on race and migration by first, shifting the geographic locus outside Europe/America to analyse racialisation of migrant workers in the Middle East, and second, by drawing on scholars from the global South who theorise systematic humiliation as a manifestation of deeply unequal societies. The paper illuminates the operation of the kafala as a racially stratified occupational hierarchy of migrant workers that is legitimated by an hegemonic ideology and practices of degradation, diffused coercion and state enforcement. The paper also ‘de-exceptionalises the Middle East’ to argue that while these racialised hierarchies of difference in the kafala sustain and expand the possibilities of capitalist accumulation through the expropriation of migrant labour, they are not unique to the Middle East.

摘要

由于大量报告虐待移民工人，中东盛行的kafala移民赞助制度长期以来一直是学术和公众审查的主题。对kafala 的普遍分析将其视为一种食利者系统，为非本国移民工人和公民担保雇主提供经济机会，尽管其固有的结构不对称性使整体经济利益偏向后者。然而，将非洲和亚洲移民工人种族化地纳入卡法拉在此类分析中很少考虑。本文利用交叉的、批判性的种族观点，首先通过将地理地点转移到欧洲/美国以外来分析中东移民工人的种族化，从而在种族和移民研究中“去中心化白人凝视”，其次，通过借鉴来自全球南方的学者，他们将系统性羞辱理论化为严重不平等社会的表现。该论文阐明了kafala作为移民工人种族分层的职业等级制度的运作，这种等级制度通过霸权意识形态和退化、分散胁迫和国家执法的做法而合法化。该论文还“将中东排除在外”，认为虽然卡法拉中这些种族化的差异等级 通过剥夺移民劳动力来维持和扩大资本主义积累的可能性，这并非中东独有。