My latest piece is just up at Jadaliyya, a discussion of Pardis Mahdavi's new book examining human trafficking and labor migration in Dubai.
This was a difficult piece to write: how best to engage such a messy and misunderstood phenomenon, discuss Mahdavi's often subtle and sometimes problematic approach, and contextualize it all within a brief history of the policies framing migrant life and the experience of human slavery in under 2500 words or less.
What resulted is far from perfect as it stands. But my hope is that it might serve to encourage others to pick up what I consider an important book on an even more important subject, and offer a jumping off point for new considerations of the disconnect between the policies and discourse surrounding the human trafficking phenomenon on the one hand, and the lived experiences of those millions who leave the broken economies of home in search of new opportunities abroad that might fulfill their basic human right to work.