Book contents
- Fronmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Chapter One Introduction: Marx’s Field as Our Global Present
- Chapter Two Into the Field with Marx: Some Observations on Researching Class
- Chapter Three Marx’s Merchants’ Capital: Researching Agrarian Markets in Contemporary India
- Chapter Four The Ties That Divide: Marx’s Fractions of Capital and Class Analysis in/for the Global South
- Chapter Five Marx in the Sweatshop: Exploitation and Social Reproduction in a Garment Factory Called India
- Chapter Six Thinking about Capital and Class in the Gulf Arab States
- Chapter Seven Marx on the Bourse: Coffee and the Intersecting/Integrated Circuits of Capital
- Chapter Eight Learning Marx by Doing: Class Analysis in an Emerging Zone of Global Horticulture
- Chapter Nine Understanding Labour Relations and Struggles in India through Marx’s Method
- Chapter Ten Investigating Class Relations in Rural South Africa: Marx’s ‘Rich Totality of Many Determinations’
- Chapter Eleven From Marx’s ‘Double Freedom’ to ‘Degrees of Unfreedom’: Methodological Insights from the Study of Uzbekistan’s Agrarian Labour
- Chapter Twelve The Labour Process and Health through the Lens of Marx’s Historical Materialism
- Chapter Thirteen Marx and the Poor’s Nourishment: Diets in Contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa
- Chapter Fourteen Marx In Utero: A Workers’ Inquiry of the In/Visible Labours of Reproduction in the Surrogacy Industry
- Chapter Fifteen Marx, the Chief, the Prisoner and the Refugee
- Chapter Sixteen Postcolonial Marxism and the ‘Cyber-Field’ in COVID Times: On Labour Becoming ‘Working Class’
- Notes on Contributors
- Index
Chapter Six - Thinking about Capital and Class in the Gulf Arab States
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2022
- Fronmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Chapter One Introduction: Marx’s Field as Our Global Present
- Chapter Two Into the Field with Marx: Some Observations on Researching Class
- Chapter Three Marx’s Merchants’ Capital: Researching Agrarian Markets in Contemporary India
- Chapter Four The Ties That Divide: Marx’s Fractions of Capital and Class Analysis in/for the Global South
- Chapter Five Marx in the Sweatshop: Exploitation and Social Reproduction in a Garment Factory Called India
- Chapter Six Thinking about Capital and Class in the Gulf Arab States
- Chapter Seven Marx on the Bourse: Coffee and the Intersecting/Integrated Circuits of Capital
- Chapter Eight Learning Marx by Doing: Class Analysis in an Emerging Zone of Global Horticulture
- Chapter Nine Understanding Labour Relations and Struggles in India through Marx’s Method
- Chapter Ten Investigating Class Relations in Rural South Africa: Marx’s ‘Rich Totality of Many Determinations’
- Chapter Eleven From Marx’s ‘Double Freedom’ to ‘Degrees of Unfreedom’: Methodological Insights from the Study of Uzbekistan’s Agrarian Labour
- Chapter Twelve The Labour Process and Health through the Lens of Marx’s Historical Materialism
- Chapter Thirteen Marx and the Poor’s Nourishment: Diets in Contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa
- Chapter Fourteen Marx In Utero: A Workers’ Inquiry of the In/Visible Labours of Reproduction in the Surrogacy Industry
- Chapter Fifteen Marx, the Chief, the Prisoner and the Refugee
- Chapter Sixteen Postcolonial Marxism and the ‘Cyber-Field’ in COVID Times: On Labour Becoming ‘Working Class’
- Notes on Contributors
- Index
Summary
Abstract
The study of the Middle East, and of the Gulf monarchies in particular, is generally dominated by institutionalist and neo-Weberian approaches focusing on religious identity, sectarianism, authoritarianism or natural resource endowment as key explanatory factors underlying social processes in the region. In these accounts, the notion of class often disappears from view or is loosely elided with anachronistic or imprecise labels such as ‘merchants’ and ‘elites’. This chapter reflects on how Marxist conceptualisations of class can help in grasping the specificities of labour, migration and capital accumulation in the Gulf – not least in thinking about how the social relations underlying these categories extend across national borders with profound implications for the surrounding region. This is much more than simply an issue of theory; Marx's work can be a powerful guide to doing field research in the Gulf – revealing the right questions to ask and helping unearth surprising connections that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. The analysis draws on the author's experience of several years of living and research in the Gulf; conducting interviews with businesspeople, migrant workers and other key informants; teaching Gulf women citizens and, overall, trying to grasp – in the field, with Marx – the nature of capitalist accumulation in the Gulf.
Introduction
My work has largely focused on the Middle East, where I explore questions of political economy and class formation. With a few significant exceptions, Marxist writing on the Middle East has long been eclipsed by institutionalist and neo-Weberian approaches that emphasise factors such as religious identity, sectarianism, authoritarianism or natural resource endowment as key explanatory factors underlying social processes in the region. This is particularly true for academic research on the Gulf monarchies – my main area of interest – where categories such as class and capitalism are largely absent or loosely elided with anachronistic or imprecise labels such as ‘merchants’ and ‘elites’. Counter to this marginalisation of Marxist categories, I hope to show in this chapter how Marx's extensive writings provide a powerful lens for understanding the dynamics of the region and to illustrate the ways in which they have informed my own work.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Marx in the Field , pp. 77 - 90Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2021