From slaves to contract workers: Genealogies of consent and security in Indian labor migration

Abstract

This article examines how the mechanisms used by the British Empire to move indentured workers during the nineteenth were implemented in the twentieth century in order to move Indian workers to the oilfields of the Arabian/ Persian Gulf and the cominuation of this process into the present. Using archival and ethnographic material, this article explores shifting legal engagements with the discourse of consent and how consent is mobilized in regard to the treatment of migrant laborers. The article then considers how the securitization of oil impacted workers’ rights and, particularly, issues around worker consent. Examining the continuation of the mechanisms used to move Indian indentured laborers, in conjunction with a rhetoric of security, gives insight into how the rights of workers have been actively curtailed while simultaneously framed as consensual.