Unfree

Rhacel Salazar Parreñas is Professor of Sociology and Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Southern California. She is the author of numerous books, including Illicit Flirtations: Labor, Migration and Sex Trafficking in Tokyo, and Children of Global Migration: Transnational Families and Gendered Woes. She is the recipient of the 2019 Jessie Bernard Award from the American Sociological Association.

"Challenging standard interpretations of migrant women's powerlessness and oppression, Rhacel Salazar Parreñas offers a pathbreaking account of Filipino domestic workers in the United Arab Emirates. A compelling contribution not only to studies of migration and labor but also to economic sociology."—Viviana A. Zelizer, Princeton University "I have long been impressed by the distinctive ways in which Parreñas generates her analysis of diverse social conditions. These analytic modes emerge once again in her latest book Unfree, one phrase that contains a vastness of meanings. This is a must-read."—Saskia Sassen, Columbia University "In this impressive ethnography, Parreñas illuminates moral harms associated with 'unfree labor' and offers new insights into the quandary that arises when redress for those harms lays well beyond the laws of sending states, receiving states, and international organizations."—Mary Hawkesworth, Rutgers University Based on the republican conceptualization of unfreedom, [Unfree] paves the way for understanding a wide range of experiences and conditions of migrant domestic workers in the UAE. This study... both acknowledges the positive experiences of domestic workers in thekafalasystem and includes them in the analysis by complicating the story of exploitation unlike the previous studies on domestic work in the region."—Canan Uçar, International Migration "Locating unfreedom in the sponsorship system that gives free reign to sponsors over their employees,Unfree lays a critical foundation for future scholarly, legal, and policy interventions in migrant domestic work, both in the Arab world and beyond. Excellent for anyone working on labor and migration. Highly Recommended."—J. Alkorani, CHOICE "Unfree guides us through the transnational mobility of these domestic workers and their subsequent economic immobility. Using relatively plain language, the book is accessible to academic and non-academic audiences from disparate disciplinary backgrounds who are interested in understanding Filipino domestic work in the UAE beyond victimhood."—Estella Carpi, Mashriq & Mahar "A powerful, pathbreaking book that upends many (Orientalist) assumptions about migrant domestic work in Arab states, Unfree is set to become a classic."—Victoria Reyes, American Journal of Sociology "Without doubt, [Unfree] sets a new direction for us to understand the work environment of migrant domestic workers and should be read by all who are interested in the topic."—Eric Fong, Social Forces