Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
inationofracializedandgendereddiscoursesabouttraffickingandthe“rescueindustry”
thesehavegenerated,andthenmovetoadiscussionofthereverberationsofantitraffick-
ing discourses, policies, and development efforts in the UAE. By contrasting discourses
abouttraffickingintheUAEwithactual livedexperiences andlocal grassrootsefforts,I
highlight the shortcomings of discourse, policy, and development, and the ways that the
figures of victim and villain are constructed through hegemonic discourses. I conclude
with ethnographic narratives of my interlocutors who describe the negative impacts of
development efforts on their lives and experiences in the Gulf.
Victims and Villains
The first time I met Ziya she was living with a group of Indonesian and Australian real
estate agents in the Jumeirah Beach Residences, a high end housing complex located in
the southern, newer part of Dubai that has emerged as the more affluent part of town.
“Here, I love. JBR very good,” Ziya told me, referring to her current housing situation.
“Me, I'm not liking Bur Dubai. Living on street, living in bus station. Bur Dubai dark,
bad. Marina, nice,” she said, contrasting the two very different parts of town she had in-
habited since migrating to Dubai in 2007. She walked out to the balcony of her current
hometoshowmethebreathtakingviewofthePersianGulfandtheaccompanyingPalm
Islands as she settled in to tell her story.
ZiyamigratedoutofAddisAbabain2007afterherhusbandleftherwithtwochildren
and deeply in debt. Having heard from friends that there was an abundance of work in
the Middle East and “a lot of money there,” as she said, she decided to migrate to Dubai
to pursue domestic work. When she arrived, however, she was placed with a family that
was highly abusive toward her. “They burn my clothes, throw cups at me, very diffi-
cult,” she explained. Domestic workers in the Gulf States fall outside the protection of
labor laws, and due to the sponsorship system in the UAE (
kefala
) legal residency in
Dubai is dependent on the sponsor-employers (problematically collapsed into the same
category) who often retain employees' passports and legal working papers.
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When Ziya made the decision to run away from her abusive employers, she not only
absconded from her job, but automatically became an illegal alien. “I run away, but no
passport, no place to go,” she explained, reflecting on a tumultuous time in her life not
six months earlier. Without her passport (which her former employers still retain), leg-
al work permits, or any money, Ziya entered the informal economy, working as a sex
workerandsleepinginairportterminals,busstations,oronthestreetsofBurDubai,the
older part of town which is now somewhat of a working class neighborhood populated
mostly by migrant workers of South and East Asian origin.
Lining the wide streets of the southern part of Dubai and the Marina area, gleaming
skyscrapers are often spaced miles apart to allow for breathtaking views of the Gulf, the
