Gulf labor illegality trains South Asian migrants in normalized subordination

Evidence

The illegalization of labor migrants through such practices in which the state is complicit serves to discipline workers into the quotidian struggles of migrant illegality. For South Asian labor migrants, working in the Gulf becomes an apprenticeship in normalizing the subordination and exploitation found in labor markets throughout the diaspora. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 716

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The idea that illegality is an apprenticeship — a formative, pedagogic institution that normalizes subordination across a whole transnational labor market — is a genuinely dense and paradigm-shifting framing of migrant labor.