Suchergebnisse

AbstractThe paper addresses a number of issues regarding the extent to which trafficking may be applied to migrant domestic workers who enter under the kafala system of sponsorship in the Middle East. Migrant domestic workers are the most numerous of those mentioned in reports on trafficking for labour exploitation in the region. The discussion seeks to determine whether "trafficking" can be ex post facto, rather than ex ante? In other words, can the label of trafficking be attributed only after the worker has arrived in the receiving country and is victimized according to the principles of trafficking protocols? In addition, must there be a proven intent to traffic by agents, or can employers who harm and/or exploit them be considered as traffickers alone? Should the harm done to workers on arrival at their place of work be classified (and assisted) as victims of trafficking, or as exploited workers?

From a series of interviews with Lebanese middle- and upper-class women in their latter years, the paper traces an oral history of domestic service in Lebanon over the past century. The interviews reveal various periods when women and girls were recruited from the local village poor as well from among Syrians, Palestinians, Kurds, Egyptians, and others in accordance with convenience and regional political circumstances. The long-term employment of Arab women in domestic service, with a primary focus on "live-in" maids, may be characterized as carrying a "burden" of obligation and responsibility in terms of relations of patronage and fictive kin. For example, Arab women in service, after they left the employing family, continued to claim patronage and resources for themselves and sometimes for their children as well. The outbreak of the civil war in 1975, however, marked a radical shift in the source of domestic labor, from Arab to non-Arab migrant workers, where patronage obligations were no longer required (or claimed). The paper provides anecdotal testimonies of prewar relations, identifying a continuing dependency, but now on quasi-contractual arrangements with Asian and African migrant domestic workers.

AbstractThis article addresses the question of the Muslim umma (the universal community of Muslims) which arises within the context of the ongoing debates about the status of refugees and their rights around the world, especially in the Muslim world, where a significant majority of migrants and refugees originate and are hosted. We question the existence of the Muslim umma under contemporary circumstances and discuss the extent to which the modern nation-state has undermined the principles of Muslim unity and solidarity beyond national borders. We also examine how Islamic ethics and law (fiqh) identify the imperatives of providing comfort and protection for refugees (whether they are Muslim or non-Muslim) individuals, groups, and communities when required or requested. We see this in principle, but not always in practice. Are refugee policies applied by Muslim-majority countries today in accordance with the fundamental Islamic teachings and experiences of the original hijra? Or have such principles been made redundant by the political-geographic imperatives of ethnicized nation-states? To what extent can applied policies in Muslim-majority countries be developed and enhanced in the light of umma principles that might alleviate the longstanding refugee crises in this troubled area of the world?The article consists of three main sections. The first provides a theoretical and religious analysis of the idea of the umma as an inclusive entity that encompasses all Muslims, contrasted with the modern nation-state as an exclusive geographically defined political institution. The second looks at three Muslim-majority countries that played a significant hosting role in refugee crises over the past decade, namely Jordan, Bangladesh, and Turkey. We offer some insight in understanding to what extent their policies or behavior were based upon ummatic principles, or secularist notions of national interest and humanitarian aid? The last section summarizes the recent innovation providing for Muslim refugees through a UNHCR arrangement and adaptation with the Islamic charitable obligation of Zakat. It is suggested that the UNHCR Zakat Fund is an ummatic manifestation that has already proved honorable and viable. The conclusion calls for a better understanding of the umma as it is in the Islamic consciousness towards an effective reforming of refugee policies and practices, suggesting a further enhancement of ummatic institutional collaboration between the OIC and UNHCR for refugee integration.

The paper addresses the migrant-refugee debate in relation to recent refugee flows from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries gaining unauthorized entry into Europe. This is compared with the accusations (and denials) that the wealthy countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (gcc) states have not accepted any refugees from Syria in particular. It is argued that the definition of migrants and refugees is problematic in that they often converge with respect to livelihood needs and rights. Current provisions should adapt to contemporary circumstances as in the current refugee 'crisis' and perhaps more regard by Muslim states in the use of Islamic ethical principles applicable to the treatment of migrants and refugees. In this sense, there is a serendipitous convergence of recent arguments about refugee livelihood requirements and practices of Muslim countries such as the gcc. The primary difference is that for refugees, resettlement is assumed to be permanent, while the gcc states only offer temporary residence status.

This paper is concerned with the commodification of the risk of death which occurred with the development of life insurance and with the role of the medical examination in making life insurance a viable commodity. Using British and Australian data, it shows how the medical profession and the medical examination were crucial to nineteenth century life insurance institutions in the calculation of the value of human lives. Life insurance institutions combined a developing ideology of health with the knowledge of health statistics and applied both for a developing institutional finance market. The calculation and preservation of the value of individual human lives by the pooling of risks on selected lives is the service which life insurance sells and which underpins finance capital. The knowledge developed from health and morbidity statistics was a process both of social surveillance and of market‐oriented monitoring for economic risk‐reduction. At the level of the individual the necessity for life insurance was the dissolution of traditional community and familial support as industrial capitalism developed.