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Philippine Migrant Workers' Transnationalism in the Middle East

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2011

Robyn Magalit Rodriguez
Robyn Magalit Rodriguez
Affiliation:
Rutgers University
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Abstract

How do migrants assert their rights as workers when they do not enjoy the rights of citizenship in their countries of employment and are unable to assert their human rights through international conventions? This article focuses on the work of Migrante-International's Middle East chapter in Saudi Arabia. Specifically, it examines the ways Philippine migrants strategically assert their rights as Philippine citizens transnationally in local labor struggles. This case study of transnational labor activism in a region where migrant workers enjoy limited rights not only highlights how migrants exercise their agency in spite of major obstacles, but it also offers up novel ways to think about worker organizing within the context of contemporary neoliberal globalization for labor activists and scholars concerned with the labor rights of migrants.

Type
Migrant Workers in the Middle East
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 79 , Special Issue 1: Labor Migration to the Middle East , Spring 2011 , pp. 48 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 2011

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References

NOTES

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11. Ibid.

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21. Ibid.

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26. Ibid.

27. Martinez, , “OFW victims and families dare Arroyo's Saudi agenda,” Migrante International, 2009Google Scholar.

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34. Robyn Magalit Rodriguez, “Challenging the Limits of the Law,” 2009.