152 Between Private and Public
public”—including bodies, spaces and associations—and locating these
various modes in fields of power. The mainstay of this article is an analysis
of the presence of migrant domestic workers in public space that includes
tracing its historical trajectories in order to highlight the particularities
of the present-day situation. Finally, moving to the arena of public debate
and representation, we briefly discuss migrant domestic workers’ presence
in the media.
Contexts and preconditions
A key concept that provides insight into the public presence of migrant
domestic workers in the Middle East is mobility. In order to become
present in public space in the Middle East migrant domestic work-
ers need to make two moves: they have to cross international borders
to travel from their place of origin to the site of employment; and once
there, they need to have the opportunity to move outside the confines of
their employer’s home.
nternational migration needs to be seen within the context of tre-I
mendous inequalities in wealth on a global scale. In the Middle East a cru-
cial moment was the development of the oil economy after 1973. The very
rapid rise of income in the oil-exporting countries, such as in the United
Arab Emirates, brought about a strong demand for migrant workers in
infrastructure and construction, education and health services, as well as
in domestic labor.^3 At first migrant workers—especially the large numbers
employed in education and health services—tended to be mainly from the
Arab world. From the 1980s on, Arab migrants were gradually replaced
by Asian labor in those fields of employment that do not require Arabic
language proficiency, as Asian labor was cheaper, seen as less of a political
risk, and easier to control, while some of the better positions were taken
up by nationals. With the economic recession of the later 1980s, demand
for workers in construction and infrastructure fell, while the demand for
domestic workers continued. As a result migration from Asia became
increasingly feminized.^4
uch an influx of migrant labor did not remain limited to the oil-S
producing countries in the Middle East. The development of the oil