Class relations, communal solidarities and national identity in the Gulf States. The case of migrant workers

Migration towards the Gulf States, contrary to analogous movements to developed countries has up till now interested sociologists primarily for its effects on the society of migrant origin - in particular rural society. On the other hand, Gulf societies have been understudied and the foreign resident population in the Gulf, despite their numerical importance, have received scant attention from sociologists. Societies of the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula are at the cross-point of several types of social relations, of modes of production, which function on different scales and space-levels. Labour migrations and the modes of existence and insertion of the foreign population seem a clear indication of such a plurality of determinations and an analysis of class and power structures and relations at the regional level is necessary to understand these specific realities