In contrast to ample negative representations of Muslim men as too violent, too masculine, and as security threats in the making, in this paper, I provide a cultural analysis of one form of hegemonic masculinity practices in Morocco, namely that of men who chose to stay behind and work in the informal sector, and are “breadwinners” within not only a compromised ethical order but also within systems of exclusion and contempt, called al-hogra. I argue that far from the popular anxiety over Muslim men, they are men in pain struggling to earn “a piece of bread”, and in so doing, are chasing after respect and dignity in precarity. More importantly, I claim that the concept of al-hogra provides a useful theoretical framework to bring society’s unresolved political development issues, persistent poverty, and unemployment knot into better focus.

The poverty,rising population and social inequality in the Philippines have made the country one of the chief exporters of human labor worldwide with some eleven million Filipinos working abroad. More than two million Filipino live and work in the often harsh conditions of the Gulf region and some 700,000 can be found in the United Arab Emirates. This interdisciplinary and bi-directional paper will first provide a brief introduction and historical background to the Philippine labor migration in the Gulf region and then focus on the Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) diaspora in the UAE, examining the motives for their migration, their work and living conditions, the social structure,both formal and informal, the religious life, and cohesion of their community within that country. Their human rights and gender inequality situation will also be assessed. In the second part of the paper the political entitlements of the diaspora community will be examined, in particular their rights of representation and democratic participation as Philippine citizens, along with the diplomatic efforts exerted on their behalf by the government in Manila. The third part of the paper will deal with the reverse aspect of the issue by focusing upon the Filipino diaspora's impact upon the host country of the United Arab Emirates in terms of economic, social, cultural and security factors. It will also analyze the religious and legal constraints which the host country imposes upon the Filipino diasporic community within its state borders. The United Arab Emirates, along with several fellow Gulf Arab countries, constitute a remarkable example of a state where multiple diasporic labor communities co-exist relatively smoothly in the setting where the national citizens are in a rather small minority. Only about 15% of the UAE population of ten million consist of Emirati nationals, while the demographic profile is dominated by large Indian and Pakistani labor diasporas. The theoretical approach which will be adopted in this paper will in part utilize the concept of 'island communities', coined by the American historian Robert Wiebe during the late 1960s. The paper will also explore the distinction between the 'temporary diasporas', such as the Filipino labor migrants, and the 'permanent diasporas', of overseas minority communities, the members of which are either citizens or permanent residents of their host countries.

On September 21, 2016 a boat carrying at least 400 migrants sunk off the coast of Rashid, Egypt killing over 200 people including 43 Egyptians. While sea tragedies like this one are not new to Egypt, this event in particular was significant because it highlighted the trend of increasing numbers of Egyptian nationals migrating irregularly to Europe, sparking a national conversation on this issue. In both official and public discourse, this highly visible and well documented accident raised questions on accountability and the role of the state in this phenomenon. I plan to use this incident as a case study in my research for understanding the discursive dynamics of the increase of cross-Mediterranean migration by Egyptians. In particular, I will investigate how these individuals have been represented by official and unofficial narratives and the role of the state in shaping public discourse. This paper is concerned with identifying and drawing connections between the hegemonic discourse and how it relates to Egyptian state-society relations in the post-2011 era. The relationship between the discourse of the Egyptian irregular migrant and the development of recent migration and security policy measures will also be critically examined. I aim to examine the discourse of the current irregular migration wave in the Egyptian context and analyze the dynamics that create and sustain the representation of the Egyptian clandestine. I will describe and assess how the image of the Egyptian irregular migrant subject has come to be represented by analyzing official statements, media and cultural productions. How and why this particular image has been cultivated and sustained is a key notion that this research aims to explore. In order to do so, questions of power relations between the state and the individual and state accountability and responsibility toward its citizens are central in explaining the rise of hegemonic discourse regarding the decision by Egyptians to embark on the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean. Studies on how a country’s media covers their own nationals migrating through clandestine means are limited. Often studies on media discourse regarding migration are situated from a perspective of countries of the global north that determine how the immigrant from the global south coming into the developed receiving country is portrayed, usually as a threat. This research is unique in that it approaches a growing current phenomenon in the context of its own local media and cultural productions.