TY - JOUR
T1 - Contractually Sterilized
T2 - Migrant Mothers and Carceral Politics in the Gulf Coast Cooperation (GCC) Countries
AU - Mahdavi, Pardis
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2020.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Migration to the Gulf Countries of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait has become increasingly feminized in the past two decades. Women make up the majority of migrants to the Gulf, and while they often migrate during their most fertile reproductive years while they labor in the Gulf, they are prohibited by contract from becoming pregnant—leading to a situation of what I call “contractual sterilization.” The purpose of this essay is twofold: first, to look at the impacts of contractual sterilization on migrant women’s experiences as they labor abroad; and second, to look at how becoming a parent (or the possibility of reproducing) while in the host country structures a discourse and series of actions that can lead migrant women into challenging situations of becoming undocumented and illegal, detained, abused, or deported. Drawing on several years of ethnographic research in the UAE and Kuwait between 2004 and 2014, I contrast women’s experiences of parenthood in Kuwait City, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi with conversations and discourses constructed about migrant women’s bodies, reproductive capabilities, and sexualities. Beyond looking at the question of intimate labor, I aim to look at the intimate lives of those engaging in intimate labor and ask what of the personal, affective, and emotional ties of those working in spheres of intimate labor?
AB - Migration to the Gulf Countries of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait has become increasingly feminized in the past two decades. Women make up the majority of migrants to the Gulf, and while they often migrate during their most fertile reproductive years while they labor in the Gulf, they are prohibited by contract from becoming pregnant—leading to a situation of what I call “contractual sterilization.” The purpose of this essay is twofold: first, to look at the impacts of contractual sterilization on migrant women’s experiences as they labor abroad; and second, to look at how becoming a parent (or the possibility of reproducing) while in the host country structures a discourse and series of actions that can lead migrant women into challenging situations of becoming undocumented and illegal, detained, abused, or deported. Drawing on several years of ethnographic research in the UAE and Kuwait between 2004 and 2014, I contrast women’s experiences of parenthood in Kuwait City, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi with conversations and discourses constructed about migrant women’s bodies, reproductive capabilities, and sexualities. Beyond looking at the question of intimate labor, I aim to look at the intimate lives of those engaging in intimate labor and ask what of the personal, affective, and emotional ties of those working in spheres of intimate labor?
KW - Gulf countries
KW - contractual sterilization
KW - gendered migration
KW - reproduction
KW - sexuality
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U2 - 10.1177/0891241620963654
DO - 10.1177/0891241620963654
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85093852816
JO - Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
JF - Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
SN - 0891-2416
ER -