Abstract
Today, workers on the Arabian Peninsula are barred from striking or forming unions, and most labor at oil projects are migrants from South Asia and the Philippines. However, an examination of the oil industry in the mid-twentieth century shows diverse coalitions of workers frequently went on strike to improve their working and living conditions. In this talk, Andrea Wright will explore what historical factors led to the progressive evacuation of politics from the oilfields and the solidification of racialized labor hierarchies in the region. Focusing on Indian worker strikes from the 1940s to 1960s, Wright considers how migrant workers influenced corporate management practices and shaped local and imperial governance. In turn, she also looks at how migrant workers’ strikes were shaped by oil company practices that included segregation based on nationality. This examination of mid-century struggles helps us understand how changing notions of citizenship and rights arose in parallel with discourses that linked oil to national security. The result was that the political influence of oil workers was radically curtailed.
Bio
Andrea Wright is currently the Class of 1952 Associate Professor of Anthropology and Asian & Middle Eastern Studies at William & Mary, where she has taught since 2016. Her research explores the histories of capitalism and its contemporary expression, and her focus is on the ways labor movements and energy production shape governance, economies, and geopolitics in South Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, and globally. She is author of Between Dreams and Ghosts: Indian Migration and Middle Eastern Oil (Stanford University Press, 2021) and Unruly Labor: A History of Oil in the Arabian Sea (Stanford University Press, 2024). Wright received her PhD from the Joint Doctoral Program in Anthropology and History at the University of Michigan.
Light refreshments will be served.
Cindy Pingry
(847) 467-1933
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