IIAS Newsletter 49 Autumn 2008

Lords of a Dubai labour camp: Pakistani migrants in the Gulf

Magnus Marsden

Migration from South Asia to the Gulf offers important insights into understanding the complex religious, political and economic worlds inhabited by Pakistanis. For the past five years Magnus Marsden has been visiting a group of men from Chitral, Pakistan’s northernmost district, who have now made the painful decision to become labourers in the Gulf. Marsden’s fascinating account reveals to us not only their motivations and experiences but also a snapshot of how men from contrasting socio-economic backgrounds are sharing their lives together in Dubai’s all-male ‘labour camps’.

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