Going and Coming and Going Again: Second-Generation Migrants in Dubai

The government of the United Arab Emirates requires all foreign migrant workers to reside on temporary visas. This affects transnational mobility patterns among the one class of residents whom we should expect to show the least degree of transnationalism: second-generation migrants. While the degree of transnationalism varies, a very high number of these migrants leave, then return and then leave again from Dubai. Drawing on 51 semi-structured interviews conducted in Dubai amongst second-generation migrants, most of them of South Asian origin, I argue that the state’s policy towards migrants is important, and more determining than other factors such as ethnic/nationality communities in understanding these migrants’ transnational behaviour.