Between dreams and ghosts : Indian migration and Middle Eastern oil / Andrea Wright.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wright, Andrea (Professor), author.

Series:

Stanford studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic societies and cultures.

Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

East Indians--Persian Gulf States.

East Indians.

Foreign workers, East Indian--Persian Gulf States.

Foreign workers, East Indian.

Petroleum industry and trade--Social aspects--Persian Gulf States.

Petroleum industry and trade.

Petroleum workers--Persian Gulf States.

Petroleum workers.

Persian Gulf States--Emigration and immigration--Social aspects.

Persian Gulf States.

India--Emigration and immigration--Social aspects.

India.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (288 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, [2021]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

More than one million Indians travel annually to work in oil projects in the Gulf, one of the few international destinations where men without formal education can find lucrative employment. Between Dreams and Ghosts follows their migration, taking readers to sites in India, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait, from villages to oilfields and back again. Engaging all parties involved—the migrants themselves, the recruiting agencies that place them, the government bureaucrats that regulate their emigration, and the corporations that hire them—Andrea Wright examines labor migration as a social process as it reshapes global capitalism. With this book, Wright demonstrates how migration is deeply informed both by workers' dreams for the future and the ghosts of history, including the enduring legacies of colonial capitalism. As workers navigate bureaucratic hurdles to migration and working conditions in the Gulf, they in turn influence and inform state policies and corporate practices. Placing migrants at the center of global capital rather than its periphery, Wright shows how migrants are not passive bodies at the mercy of abstract forces—and reveals through their experiences a new understanding of contemporary resource extraction, governance, and global labor.

Contents:

Introduction : beyond scarcity and surplus

Part I. Of mangoes and men. Protecting vulnerable citizens

Cultivating entrepreneurs

Building influential networks

Part II. Connective substances. Making kin with gold

The Rig and the temple

Part III. The weight of tradition. Blowing sand

The demon of unsafe acts

Conclusion : enduring debts.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 10. Jan 2022)

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781503630116

1503630110

OCLC:

1291506494