I build upon the earlier discussion – in Chapter 3 – of internal forms of social "tiering" and exclusion to further interrogate the politics of belonging in Gulf monarchies, this time through the employment of foreign labor. I disentangle the ways in which foreign labor plays a role in the shaping and consolidation of the national community, and I distinguish among European "expats," non-GCC Arabs, Asian and African laborers. I argue that labor from the three different categories play similar but also distinct roles in the delineation of national community: While they are differentially incorporated in ways that protect the "nation" and appease the citizen-subject, varying degrees of marginality reflect Gulf society’s perceptions or aspirations of the difference between itself and "the other(s)." Additionally, I examine some of the peculiarities of the importation, organization and incorporation of foreign labor, connect them to the normative tradition, and consider how they serve the ruler’s objective to manage and control society.

Previous historians have acknowledged the existence of paid domestic labor in the Soviet Union, but their work always proceeded from the assumption that domestic service was something illicit. This book shows that domestic service not only remained legal under Soviet law, its existence was openly discussed and even considered essential for the Soviet economy. Yet, the compatibility of domestic service with the Bolsheviks’ egalitarian message remained a contested issue. Critics of domestic service argued on Marxist grounds that it was an “unproductive employment” of workers. Proponents of paid domestic labor emphasized the domestic workers’ contribution to the building of socialism because this labor freed the still more valuable labor of their employers. Throughout the seven decades of the Soviet Union, the question of paid domestic labor came up time and again, but its contradictions could not be resolved. Bolsheviks’ sincere desire to make maids and nannies equal participants in the building of socialism came into conflict with their gendered vision of society where housework was women’s work.