3 - Rereading Omani Work History and Labour Market Governance

Summary

This chapter offers a critical rereading of Omani work history that foregrounds labour, flipping the perspective from the view of industry and capital to the human experience. Through examining the history of labour governance and resistance in Oman, it argues that the contemporary governance, regulatory, and resistance environment for labour have clear lineages in the past. First, it traverses three key legacies governing work and workers – the colonial modes of circulating, disciplining, and classifying labour, the oil industry’s human resources policies, and the management of labour in national economic planning. Second, the chapter traces discourses about workers and how these discourses and prejudices are persistent technologies of governance that influence practices and assessments of employment and development. Together, this reveals a genealogy of practice and discourse underpinned by racial capitalism that have shaped work life in Oman and the Gulf more widely. Finally, the chapter discusses the various forms of contestation to these practices over time, including connections to worker agitation and mobilisation, strike action, and connections with antiimperialist movements.