ABSTRACT
Migrant domestic workers (MDWs) comprise a highly unregulated, largely female global workforce. This chapter examines intersections of academic discourse and state policy as refracted in the trajectories, struggles and lived experience of Indian MDWs in Saudi Arabia. Women in South Asia are frequently excluded from the labour market, absent from state intervention and statutory coverage. It charts the definitional issues and discursive techniques that frame the figure of the MDW, with a view to deroutinize dominant discourse. It focuses on the Indian MDW through the migration cycle from India to Saudi Arabia. The chapter presents preliminary observations from surveys of 56 Indian domestic workers conducted as part of a broader study of 1,000 low- and semi-skilled Indian migrants in Saudi Arabia by the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs Research Unit on International Migration at the Centre for Development Studies, Kerala. Immigration controls and practises work with migratory processes and migrant subjectivities.
