Gold diggers and their housewives: the gendered political economy of Thai labor export to Saudi Arabia, 1975–1990

Abstract

ABSTRACTFrom 1975 to 1990 several hundred thousand Thais became guest workers in the Middle East. Focusing on texts from the period including migrant guidebooks, lyrics, and state publications, this contribution analyzes the gendered political economy of the migration of Thai men to Saudi Arabia, a phenomenon referred to domestically as “gold digging.” While the Thai state imposed restrictions on the export of female laborers, Thai women were nevertheless believed to have an important role in transnational migration as left-behind housewives who offered their husbands long-distance emotional support and regular assurances of their fidelity. This research engages Marxist feminist theory to demonstrate how left-behind wives contributed to and were impacted by their husbands' participation in guest worker programs. It demonstrates that guest worker programs outsource not only intergenerational reproduction to labor-sending communities but also affective dimensions of labor-power renewal. Moreover, the confluence of guest worker programs with patriarchal norms in labor-sending communities may mean that left-behind wives – like guest workers themselves – experience restrictions on their sexuality and freedoms of movement and expression.