Middle Eastern Studies Program Presents
Migrant Labor in the Middle East
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Olin Humanities, Room 102
6:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
6:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Anjali Kamat
Non-citizen Asian and African migrants constitute a significant portion of the working classes in many parts of the Middle East, particularly in the countries that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council as well as Jordan and Lebanon. Primarily from South Asia, they fill low-wage temporary contract jobs in the construction, garment, and service sectors, including domestic labor in people’s homes. They are the labor behind the gravity-defying towers and the endless malls, luxury hotels, museums, university campuses, football stadiums, and other monuments to late capitalism that dot the oil-rich cities of the Arabian peninsula. As the Persian Gulf became the fulcrum of American military power in the region, a section of this migrant population also found service jobs in the rapidly expanding war economy, particularly on military bases—first in Iraq and Afghanistan, and soon across the wide expanse of the United States Central Command. Despite their significant contributions, the voices of migrant workers are all but absent from discussions about the Middle East —except, in recent years, as hapless victims of trafficking and abuse.
Anjali Kamat will discuss her research on this vast underclass of migrant workers and the challenges of reporting on their lives and struggles to organize for basic rights and live with a measure of dignity. She will screen the Emmy-nominated documentary she co-produced for Fault Lines: "America's War Workers"
Anjali Kamat is an award-winning journalist based in New York. A former correspondent and producer for Democracy Now! and Al Jazeera's current affairs documentary series Fault Lines, she has covered US foreign policy, corporate accountability, the Arab uprisings, and struggles for racial, economic, gender, and environmental justice in the United States and beyond. She is now writing a nonfiction book about South Asian migrant labor in the Middle East. Anjali is on the editorial committee of MERIP and has an MA in Near Eastern Studies from NYU and a post-graduate diploma in journalism from the Asian College of Journalism in Chennai, India.
Anjali Kamat will discuss her research on this vast underclass of migrant workers and the challenges of reporting on their lives and struggles to organize for basic rights and live with a measure of dignity. She will screen the Emmy-nominated documentary she co-produced for Fault Lines: "America's War Workers"
Anjali Kamat is an award-winning journalist based in New York. A former correspondent and producer for Democracy Now! and Al Jazeera's current affairs documentary series Fault Lines, she has covered US foreign policy, corporate accountability, the Arab uprisings, and struggles for racial, economic, gender, and environmental justice in the United States and beyond. She is now writing a nonfiction book about South Asian migrant labor in the Middle East. Anjali is on the editorial committee of MERIP and has an MA in Near Eastern Studies from NYU and a post-graduate diploma in journalism from the Asian College of Journalism in Chennai, India.
This event is co-sponsored by Human Rights Project at Bard College and Center for Civic Engagement.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].
Time: 6:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Location: Olin Humanities, Room 102