Blurring the Boundary Between Regular and Irregular: Tamil Low-Wage Migrants in the Gulf and the Co-Construction of Khalluli

Abstract

The mobility between South Asia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states constitutes the largest migration corridor in the world. Irregular practices are widely tolerated in this region, but have been relatively underexplored in the literature. In exploring that lack, this paper troubles the distinction between regularity and irregularity, demonstrating how different actors constituting the migration industry are complicit in the maintenance of irregularity within the India-Gulf migration corridor. Through in-depth interviews with male returnees in Tamil Nadu, the paper explores how migrants in highly precarious situations mediate modes of irregularity, examining the vulnerabilities they face as well as the strategies they use to manage the migration system. In adopting a migrant-centered perspective, this article sees migrants as co-constructors of (ir)regularity rather than as victims of the migration industry. We develop the emic category of “khalluli” to problematize the assumed link between the structural aspects of the migration system and the agency of migrants in dealing with its injustices. Rather than seeing engagement in “khalluli” or irregular labor as a coping strategy, we show that it is a collective sensibility that is woven into the social practices of migrant men. In nuancing notions of complicity amongst transnational labour migrants, this research contributes to interrogations of the migration industry, irregularity, and negotiations of precarity.