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Indentured labor or "good governance"?: Interrogating emigration and workers’ negotiations over contracts in Kenyan domestic worker labor migration to the Gulf states
Department of Education, Stockholm University, Frescativägen 54, Stockholm, Sweden.
Department of Sociology, Social Work and African Women’s Studies, University of Nairobi, PO Box 30197, Nairobi, Kenya.
Umeå University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Geography.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7643-0272
2026 (English)In: Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society, ISSN 1072-4745, E-ISSN 1468-2893, Vol. 33, no 2, p. 316-338Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

This article critically examines the governance of Kenyan domestic workers’ labor migration to the Gulf states through digital platforms such as the Labor Mobility Management Information System (LMMIS). Drawing on interviews with returnee migrants and other stakeholders, it interrogates whether contemporary eMigration systems reproduce colonial-era indenture logics by creating a “fiction of free labor” through contractual rituals. The study reveals how debt, work contract substitution, and structural barriers exacerbate vulnerabilities, despite state efforts to ensure “good governance.” By applying a pluralizing social reproduction approach, the authors highlight the gendered, racialized, and neoliberal dimensions of care work migration, urging reforms that center migrant agency and rights.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Oxford University Press, 2026. Vol. 33, no 2, p. 316-338
Keywords [en]
contract substitution, eMigration, global care chains, indenture, labor migration, social reproduction
National Category
Social Anthropology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-258071DOI: 10.1093/sp/jxag018ISI: 001848133700003Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105047034435OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-258071DiVA, id: diva2:2096829
Funder
Swedish Research Council Formas, 2021-00984Available from: 2026-08-31 Created: 2026-08-31 Last updated: 2026-08-31Bibliographically approved

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Tollefsen, Aina

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