Walls Built On Sand: Migration, Exclusion, And Society In Kuwait [Paperback]

Anh Nga Longva (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0813337852 | ISBN-13: 978-0813337852

When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the sight of tens of thousands of non-Kuwaiti Arabs, Indians, East Asians, and Westerners fleeing or trapped under occupation made the outside world suddenly aware of a singular fact of Kuwaiti society—that Kuwaitis are an absolute minority in their own country. Basing her analysis on extensive fieldwork and archival research, the author examines the social dimension of labor migration to Kuwait since independence in 1961, exploring how the presence of over one million foreign workers has influenced the way Kuwaitis organize their lives and perceive themselves. In particular, Longva looks at the relations between two sharply differentiated social categories and the politics of exclusion that have allowed Kuwaitis to protect their rights and privileges as citizens against infringement by the huge influx of expatriates. Longva examines the little-studied system of kafala, or sponsorship, under which all foreign workers enter and reside in the country, showing how it has become the most critical source of power for native Kuwaitis vis-à-vis immigrants. She also addresses aspects of ethnicity and class, describes the life of expatriates, and looks at developments in gender relations and the role of women in building the national identity in the context of migration and modernization.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 266 pages
• Publisher: Westview Press (October 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813337852
• ISBN-13: 978-0813337852
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,278,767 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Walls Built on Sand, July 31, 2001

By 

Daniel Pipes, Middle East Forum, Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Walls Built On Sand: Migration, Exclusion, And Society In Kuwait (Paperback)

The author, a Vietnamese refugee married to a Norwegian diplomat, lived in Kuwait and makes good use of both her theoretical training and personal experiences to write an insightful study on the condition of Kuwait's migrant workers. Tracing the current system back to its historical roots in pre-oil days, Longva shows the continuities between the indentured pearl divers of old and the domestics and chauffeurs in today's system. She deciphers the social signals of clothing and concludes that the characteristic white robe worn by Kuwaiti males (dishdasha) sends a strong signal of enfranchisement and social power, for it is almost exclusively worn by Kuwaiti men, the country's effective nobility.

Longva delineates a social structure that includes six main groups: Kuwaiti men on top, followed by Kuwaiti women, then Arab men, Arab women, Asian men, and, at the bottom, Asian women. Except for the first and last, all these groups are sometimes in a "male" (or superior) position, other times in a "female" position. Symbolic of this topsy-turvy order is David, the friendly Indian who works in the lingerie department; his inferior status makes it appropriate for him to counsel black-swathed women on their underwear-something unimaginable for a Kuwait man to do. Middle-class Asians assert their status by parading the signs of their wealth. Longva's description of the way in which a temporary sejourn to make money "blurred and melted into a vague and widening project, the end of which was increasingly difficult to foresee," ably captures the poignancy of the migrant worker's condition caught between two cultures, two places, and two lives.

Middle East Quarterly, Sept 1997