Abstract
The chapter analyses the privileges and immobilities of young Kuwaitis who have Filipina mothers. In particular, the discussion examines how their legal, social and gendered conditions affect their educational choices and career paths. It is generally accepted that the national citizens of Arab Gulf states are deemed to be the most privileged and have the most rights among all the people who reside there. This understanding may not be necessarily true, however, from the standpoint of second-generation children of mixed marriages with nationals of the Arab Gulf states, especially those having Filipina mothers. Their experiences of relative hardship and privilege differ between young men and women, and the attitude towards their citizenship status also differs between mothers and their children. These perspectives are affected by a more general view Kuwaitis have in relation to Filipinas, the traditional gendered role imposed on them and the working environment in Kuwait. In this context, the chapter explores how these young people find their way out by making choices in education and in career paths, and how they employ their human and social capital to pursue their future plans. Citizenship and higher education help free them from some constraints, enabling them to be mobile, but familial ties also bring them back, making them immobile.
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Notes
- 1.
All names are pseudonyms to protect the identities of the interlocutors.
- 2.
This refers to a principle that children inherit the nationality of their parents. In the case of the Arab Gulf states, which have strong patriarchal traditions, children inherit their father’s nationality; if the mother is a national who married a non-national, the child would receive their father’s nationality.
- 3.
The remainder comprised 191,787 temporary residents (documented workers and others who are staying for six months or more, including their accompanying dependants) and 6,000 irregular people (those without valid residence or work permits, or who may be overstaying workers or tourists) (CFO 2013).
- 4.
Although Abdulrahman Alebrahim (2022) conducted research on past slavery in Kuwait, not much research has been done to link today’s situation to the past.
- 5.
According to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), now the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW), the Philippine government had banned sending domestic workers to Kuwait because of a series of maltreatment cases, including a case in which a Filipina was confined in a freezer and froze to death. The ban was lifted on 20 February 2020 (The Pinoy OFW 2020).
- 6.
Of a total population of 4,464,521, non-Kuwaitis comprised 3,099,350 (Central Statistical Bureau 2020).
- 7.
Another case are the so-called Bidoon (meaning ‘without’ in Arabic), who had been living in the region for several generations, mostly in the slum areas outside the city, but who were not recognised as nationals by the Kuwaiti government. Bidoons are stateless to this day. As claimed in a report of Supreme Council for Planning and Development (2016: 21n5), ‘every year, the State of Kuwait allows up to 2,000 Bidoon to be nationalised and be granted citizenship of Kuwait if they fulfilled the government’s criteria; these include honest reporting of the origin of their forefathers’.
- 8.
According to a Lebanese interlocuter who was born in Kuwait in 1962, acquiring Kuwaiti nationality was far easier in the 1950s to 1970s. His father was invited to work in Kuwait in the 1950s by a businessman and was offered a Kuwaiti passport, which he refused (Interview, 21 February 2019).
- 9.
This is applicable to first-time marriages for both men and women (Supreme Council for Planning and Development 2016: 23).
- 10.
Under Kuwaiti law, all Kuwaiti men are entitled to apply for government-subsidised housing after marriage (Westall 2013).
- 11.
In Kuwait, polygamy (more precisely, polygyny) is not rare. According to a study titled ‘The state of marriage in the Arab world’ by Doha International Family Institute, between 2010 and 2015, ‘Kuwait topped the rate of polygamy with 8.13 percent, followed by Qatar which has a rate of polygamous marriages of 7.88 percent and Bahrain which stood at 5.16 percent’ (New Arab 2019). In polygamy, if a man wishes to marry another woman, he must obtain consent from his first wife in wedlock. In Kuwait, arranged marriages take place at a young age through the mediation of the girl’s female relatives. Some men may later seek the second one of their own volition, like the case of Aiza’s father.
- 12.
Though there were controversies in parliament, Kuwait started accepting women into the police force in 2008; 40 women were enrolled in the police training academy that year (Alhashmi 2018). For the case of military, women had been limited to clerical roles, but it was announced in 2021 that they would be allowed to enlist in combat roles (Arab Weekly 2021).
- 13.
This refers to all Arab Gulf states except for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which did not provide data to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). As of 2020, the highest female to male ratio in higher education was 1.86 in Qatar and the lowest was 1.08 in Saudi Arabia (World Bank 2022a).
- 14.
These amounts sometimes range from KWD5,000 to KWD9,000 (USD18,150 to USD29,700), while the average monthly salary for those at the start of their careers in professional jobs is approximately KWD1,000 (USD3,300).
- 15.
Written by a young Kuwaiti, the novel describes the conflicting experiences of a boy who has a Kuwaiti father and a Filipina mother. It narrates trajectories of the boy’s long-standing struggles with his dual identity.
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Watanabe, A. (2023). Privileged but Immobile: Citizenship and Career Paths for the Youth of Bicultural Kuwaiti–Filipino Families. In: Matsukawa, K., Watanabe, A., Babar, Z.R. (eds) Transnational Generations in the Arab Gulf States and Beyond. Gulf Studies, vol 10. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5183-3_9
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