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Deshingkar et al Bangladesh Global SRO.pdf (270.88 kB)

Producing ideal Bangladeshi migrants for precarious construction work in Qatar

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journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 15:55 authored by Priya DeshingkarPriya Deshingkar, C R Abrar, Mirza Taslima Sultana, Kazi Nurmohammad Hossainul Haque, Md Selim Reza
The paper analyses the mediation of Bangladeshi construction worker migration to the Gulf and how multiple and unpredictable risks and opportunities are co-created by brokers, employers and the state. It examines how migrants navigate these to achieve imagined futures and their own role in co-creating precarity. The authors employ a relational lens to examine why aspiring migrants choose informal brokers over formal migration managers. The everyday practices of brokers in producing ideal Bangladeshi workers for the Qatari labour market and how this precarises migrant labour are unpacked. Migrant and broker interviews provide insights into the degrees of precarity experienced at different stages of the migration process. Entangled with these processes of precarisation are the strategies employed by migrant workers to resist precarity and transform their social and economic positions in the long term. The rich accounts presented in the paper provide evidence on the dialectical relationship between migrants and migration intermediaries which contrasts with popular discourses about brokers as exploiters and migrants as victims without agency.

Funding

Migrating out of Poverty Research Programme Consortium; G2194; DFID-DEPARTMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT; PO 4913

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Accepted version

Journal

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

ISSN

1369-183X

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Department affiliated with

  • Geography Publications

Research groups affiliated with

  • Sussex Centre for Migration Research Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2018-11-16

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2020-05-07

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2018-11-14

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