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This paper theorizes the gendered consequences of refugee dispossession for social reproduction, focusing on Ethiopian refugees in Nairobi, Kenya. We analyze the Kenyan refugee regime as structured by colonial legacies of racialization and by neo-colonial global political economy strategies of managing 'surplus' populations. We demonstrate that refugees' ongoing experiences of interpersonal and structural violence constitutes an attack on their capacity for social reproduction and argue the 'feminization of refugee survival' is an important gendered consequence. We identify two transnational displacements that produce a new form of racialized enclosure and the alienation of refugees from the means of social reproduction. The first transnational displacement occurs due to their dispossession from support infrastructure for social reproduction in their origin country, and in the host country. A second, invisible but racialized transnational displacement is the refusal of global North countries to take on the anticipated welfare costs of refugee social reproduction. Transformative and re-generative approaches to refugee social reproduction would need to address both forms of displacement. The paper thus urges IPE scholarship to recognize that the crisis of refugee social reproduction is not only produced by global capitalist regimes, but also deeply structured by gendered, racialized, and colonial hierarchies of inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While scholars of migration have drawn our attention to the plight of children 'left behind' when their mothers migrate, children born to migrant women in destination countries have received far less consideration. In destinations such as Lebanon, migrant domestic worker employment – and right to residency – is governed by the kafala, or sponsorship, system which prohibits pregnancy and childbirth. Despite this prohibition, considerable numbers of migrant women do give birth, leaving them at risk of unemployment, visa and work permit cancellation, and 'illegalisation'. Compounding the situation, many mothers in this situation encounter substantial barriers to returning to home countries with their children. This paper draws on interviews with Ethiopian mothers living in Lebanon and other key informants, to examine the gendered and racialised structural, symbolic and interpersonal violence that governs the lives of these women and their children. We argue that the interlocking violence to which they are subjected results in the immobilisation of migrant mothers and their children, placing them at high risk of lifelong harm within a system that produces and reproduces global inequalities and im/mobilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research documenting the re-configurations of 'public–private' boundaries encountered by migrant domestic workers has observed how they often create a sense of 'home' in public spaces in destination countries. Migrant workers' occupation of, and interactions in, public spaces such as parks, malls, restaurants, and churches in effect create 'private spheres' where they can relax and be themselves with friends and sometimes partners. Yet migrant women also often face a double exclusion from the public sphere as political subjects, first as women and second as migrants. Their physical presence in the public sphere may be highly regulated by gender norms, and their participation in the public sphere is limited due to their exclusion from citizenship or even labour entitlements. Drawing on Nancy Fraser's concept of subaltern counterpublics, this paper argues that migrant domestic workers' experiences of re-configuring public and private spaces within Lebanon contribute to the creation of 'migrant counterpublics' that challenges the methodological-nationalist limitations of conceptualisations of citizenship and participation in the public sphere. I make these reflections through an auto-ethnographic account of my experiences while researching the working lives and conditions of Ethiopian migrant domestic workers in Lebanon. Central to these reflections on our navigation of public spaces is the consideration of our embodied experiences as racialised women, which intersected with our differential class, sexuality, and migrant status positioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on qualitative research, the authors analysed the care support experiences of older Ethiopian refugees resettled in Australia. In-depth interviews conducted with 12 Ethiopians revealed that older Ethiopians experienced language and cultural barriers in accessing formal care services, and that they often did not view these services as entitlements they were due as citizens. Findings demonstrated a significant familial orientation to expectations around, and provision of, care support to older Ethiopians, which may be under-recognised in the Australian social work context. The authors argue that given this familial orientation and the difficulty in accessing formal care services, the reconfiguration of care relationships post-resettlement has resulted in increased reliance on adult daughters' attenuated capacity to meet the care needs of older parents, which raises serious concerns about the long-term viability and gender equity of such arrangements. Older Ethiopian refugees resettled in Australia may experience "care poverty" due to unmet needs for aged care services. Social work practice to redress this should recognise gendered cultural and linguistic barriers to services, and provide effective, culturally competent translation services. The familial orientation of elder care among Ethiopians may potentially over-burden adult daughters who are care-givers; care support policies should, therefore, aim to provide services to prevent gendered care inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The kafala system of migrant sponsorship prevalent in the Middle East has long been the subject of scholarly and public scrutiny, due to the high level of reported abuse of migrant workers. Prevalent analyses of the kafalaview it as a rentier system that offers economic opportunities for both non-national migrant workers and citizen sponsor-employers, despite the inherent structural asymmetries that bias the overall economic benefits towards the latter. However, the racialised incorporation of African and Asian migrant workers within the kafala is rarely considered in such analyses. Drawing on intersectional, critical race perspectives, this paper 'de-centres the white gaze' in the scholarship on race and migration by first, shifting the geographic locus outside Europe/America to analyse racialisation of migrant workers in the Middle East, and second, by drawing on scholars from the global South who theorise systematic humiliation as a manifestation of deeply unequal societies. The paper illuminates the operation of the kafala as a racially stratified occupational hierarchy of migrant workers that is legitimated by an hegemonic ideology and practices of degradation, diffused coercion and state enforcement. The paper also 'de-exceptionalises the Middle East' to argue that while these racialised hierarchies of difference in the kafala sustain and expand the possibilities of capitalist accumulation through the expropriation of migrant labour, they are not unique to the Middle East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Gender is largely under‐theorized in the now well‐developed literature on dispossession; this paper contributes to the analysis of the gender dimensions of dispossession by bringing the literature on dispossession into conversation with the feminist literature on social reproduction, specifically, depletion of social reproduction. Drawing on qualitative field research, the paper provides a gendered analysis of the multiple vectors of dispossession affecting the Miyana, a Muslim community living in the Little Rann of Kutch, an estuarine zone in central Gujarat within which prawn harvesting and salt production are their symbiotic seasonal livelihood activities. Using the concept of depletion as a diagnostic tool, I argue that the assessment of depletion due to dispossession requires investigation of the levels of mitigation, replenishment or transformation available to individuals, households and communities within the circuits of production and social reproduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the framework of justice. It highlights the approach to justice in Amartya Sen's "The Idea of Justice" which contrasts with the conceptualization of justice of Nancy Fraser in different dimensions such as redistribution, recognition, and representation. It offers the work of John Rawls, theorist of justice, concerning the principles of justice such as the liberty principle prioritizing the equality of political freedom and the difference principle on inequalities.

Since the late 1990s, there has been a dramatic increase in the numbers of Ethiopian women working on short-term contracts as domestic workers in Gulf countries. Drawing on primary research conducted in Ethiopia and in Kuwait, this paper analyzes the gendered production of the migration trajectory of Ethiopian women domestic workers to the Gulf countries. The paper maps the linkages between the gendered political economies and the policy choices of both sending and receiving countries to argue first, that there is evidence for the Ethiopian government's role as a 'labor brokerage state,' although its regulatory capacity is weak. Second, the paper argues that the assumption that the demand for migrant domestic workers is driven by national women entering the workforce is not necessarily true in the Gulf countries, where the 'social compact' and the kafala or sponsorship system are primary institutional drivers of the demand for migrant domestic workers. The paper concludes with reflections on the consequences of Ethiopian women's migration for social reproduction across national boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]