The Labour Migration Regime of the Kafāla – Continuity and Change in Qatar

Rowitz, Laura Elena (25 May 2022). The Labour Migration Regime of the Kafāla – Continuity and Change in Qatar (Unpublished). In: WORCK Training School 1: Rewriting Labour History. Perspectives from the Globe. Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, Warsaw, Poland. 23.-27.05.2022.

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Project Description: Labour relations in legal perspective in the modern Middle East
In the Gulf states (as well as in Jordan and Lebanon), the widespread phenomenon of labour migration is controlled by means of the so-called kafāla system since the 1960s. This sponsorship system grants Arab citizens’ comprehensive control over their migrant ‘guest workers’. In recent years, it has been criticized as ‘modern slavery’ and has undergone rather superficial reform processes. However, local development and human rights discourses attest to how government and quasi-state actors are striving to paint a different picture.
In my dissertation project, I examine the genesis and persistence of the kafāla as a labour
migration regime and concrete legal instrument: the introduction of the kafāla historically coincides with the late abolition of slavery in the Gulf region – and the legal transformation of slaves into wage workers coming along with it. This period is also marked by Britain's long-lasting colonial presence and the emerging oil industry. Against this background, I understand the sponsorship system as a form of labour dependency that has its origins in the region's past and is linked to the modes of production of its society.
Recently, coercion under the kafāla has increasingly raised attention in the context of the
FIFA world cup 2022 in Qatar. However, workers are affected by it in different ways, depending on their nationality, class, gender, kind of occupation and other factors. In the present, we can observe a normalization of violence against migrant workers, at times accompanied by a legitimizing discourse.
Increasingly, the issue of labour migration is being used to negotiate the national identity of Gulf societies in which the oil rentier economy poses an obstacle to the expansion of civic rights.
Both in terms of the introduction of the kafāla and its durability as an instrument of current
migration policy, I seek to examine accompanying public and legal discourse. What role do Western discourses around freedom, development, workers’, and human rights play? How is and was the kafāla linked to other regimes of labour dependency? How do gender, race, religion and class figure in these discourses?

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Division/Institute:	06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Art and Cultural Studies > Institut für Studien zum Nahen Osten und zu muslimischen Gesellschaften
Graduate School:	Graduate School of the Arts (GSA) [discontinued]
UniBE Contributor:	Rowitz, Laura Elena
Subjects:	200 Religion > 290 Other religions 300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 340 Law 900 History > 950 History of Asia
Funders:	[UNSPECIFIED] WORCK - Worlds of Related Coercions in Work
Language:	English
Submitter:	Laura Elena Rowitz
Date Deposited:	21 Mar 2023 16:12
Last Modified:	21 Mar 2023 23:27
URI:	https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/180452