Let the dead speak! Mobility, visibility and (in)security in Qatar
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5682566 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Priya Dixit (0000-0002-8171-4800, Virginia Tech, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 3 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 112-117 |
| Publication date | 2015-01-02 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Critical Studies on Security (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2162-4887 • E-ISSN: 2162-4909 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/21624887.2015.1005419 |
| OpenAlex | W1997596945 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 5 |
This short piece argues that the bodies of migrant labourers are often invisible in discussions of security. When they are visibilized, they are placed in global economic and other narratives that identify them in specific ways (‘a good worker’, ‘provider of remittances’, etc.). By providing a brief glimpse into the lives (and deaths) of Nepali migrant workers, this paper argues that is it in death and via their dead bodies that migrant workers might be able to question the structures of power that sustain the global economic system. Their intervention comes about only if/when they are not living. As such, the paper asks us to rethink our ways of conceptualizing and narrating mobility and (in)security.Keywords: mobilitymigrant labourNepalthe Gulfdead bodiesinsecurity Notes1. Stuart Murray calls this ‘politics of death’ thanatopolitics, drawing upon Agamben and Achile Mbembe’s necropolitics and Michel Foucault’s biopolitics (Murray Citation2006).2. In an interview in Pattison (Citation2013b), a former worker claims only 20–25 people had ID cards out of 160 people he knew.3. A number of them become pregnant due to rape and are then sent home, where they are often not accepted by their families. Here, these women’s bodies change and are thus noticed by the people they work for – another example of bodies ‘out of place’, as it were.4. Unlike discussions on thanatopolitics, which presume the sovereign is exercising its right to kill. For Agamben and others who discuss thanatopolitics, the act of thanatopolitics has intentionality as the sovereign controls who dies. This is not the case here with regard to migrant workers. Instead, the state, to some extent, is indifferent to their deaths. After all, there is the knowledge that if Nepalis stop coming to work in the construction projects in the Gulf, others will take their place.5. Similar points can be made about other events such as the 2013 garment factory fire in Dhaka.6. A January 2012 story in Kantipur reported more than 70 dead bodies were still waiting to be returned to Nepal from the Gulf and Malaysia. Even the dead bodies needed visas to be allowed to be taken back to Nepal, and they had not received such visas (Sedhai Citation2012).7. Stuart Murray refers to Michel Foucault’s ethics of discomfort (Citation2006, 208), wherein our positionality with regard to how we read, see and write about others is foregrounded. Harwood and Rasmussen (Citation2004) discuss an ‘ethics of discomfort’ with regard to education and learning.Additional informationNotes on contributorsPriya DixitPriya Dixit researches critical theories in IR, especially related to security and identity. She is co-author (with Jacob Stump) of Critical Terrorism Studies: An Introduction to Research (Routledge, 2013) and the author of On Terrorism: States and Terrorists in Nepal and Northern Ireland (Manchester University Press, forthcoming). Her current research is on the role played by Nepali Gurkhas in global security, taking a historical and comparative approach. She is also interested in practices and politics of visualization of others, specifically those considered ‘dangerous’ in the current global context
Biopower · Narrative · Nepali · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Sovereignty · State of exception · Gender Studies · Global Security and Public Health · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Sex work and related issues
| Citations per year | 0.2 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2016 - 2021 (6) |
| Highly cited | No |