Private photo 2004 Migrant Worker Commodity or Human?

This paper uses peace and conflict theory to analyse the migrant worker issue in the Gulf States, focusing on Indian construction workers in the emirate of Dubai. Peace and conflict theory is found to provide a missing perspective on the question, which is best understood in an interdisciplinary frame-work combined with for example migration and development theory. Migrant workers ’ vulnerability in the global free market is de-scribed and the modern economic history of the Gulf region is discussed to explain today’s unique labour situation. Different regional and local parties to the conflict are identified to distinguish guiding interests and their impact on the conflict. Put in an international perspective, the same conflict mechanisms found in the Gulf are detected globally. They reveal widespread practises of structural and cultural violence that ca