New Cartographies of Belonging and Exclusion in the United Arab Emirates

This article explores how recent policies of inclusion and exclusion in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) might be impacting South Asian diasporic communities and decision-making around immigration. We focus on the ‘Golden Visa’, which allows middle-class and elite immigrants in the UAE access to semi-permanence and a way around the entrenched kafala system of temporary migrant sponsorship. We consider how the Gulf migration regime is influenced by policymaking in South Asia just as much if not more than labour structures in the Gulf region. Gulf migration, we argue, contrary to normative narratives, might constitute an increase in rights for certain people, particularly given their experiences of diminished rights vis-à-vis their home countries. We consider how rights–rightlessness increasingly does not map neatly onto a citizen–non-citizen dichotomy and conclude that both immigrant and citizen rights are being renegotiated within new cartographies of belonging and exclusion in the UAE.