Asianization of Migrant Workers in the Gulf Countries

S. Irudaya Rajan, PhD, is Professor at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala (India). He has thirty-five years of research experience. Professor Rajan has coordinated eight  major  migration surveys in Kerala since 1998 (with Professor K C Zachariah), Goa migration survey 2008, Punjab Migration Survey 2009 and Tamil Nadu Migration Survey 2015. He played an instrumental role in conducting the  Gujarat Migration Survey 2011 and in the process of initiating Andhra Pradesh, Telegana and Bihar migration surveys. Professor Rajan has published extensively in national and international journals on social, economic, demographic, psychological and political  implications of international migration. 

He has undertaken projects on international migration with European Union, International Labour Organization, World Bank, International Organization of Migration, South Asian Network of Economic Institutes (SANEI), Rockefeller Foundation, United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organizations (UNESCO), Migrant Forum Asia, Department of Non-Resident Indian Affairs, Government of Goa, Department of Non-Resident Keralite Affairs, Government of Kerala, Commissionerate of Rehabilitation and Welfare of Non-Resident Tamils, Government of Tamil Nadu, Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, Government of India, India Centre for Migration of the Ministry of External Affairs, Canadian Institute of Health Research and International Development Research Centre. He is the editor of the Annual Series India Migration Report since 2010 and also founder Editor-in-chief of the international journal Migration and Development.

Ginu Zacharia Oommen  is currently a Member of the Kerala Public Service Commission, Trivandrum. Prior to this he was a Senior Fellow at the India Centre for Migration, New Delhi. Oommen has held numerous fellowships and has been visiting faculty at MIGRINTER (the Centre for International Migration), University of Poitiers, France; Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi; Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin; Gulf Studies Programme, JNU; Fondation maison des sciences de l’homme (FMSH), Paris; Indian Council for World Affairs, New Delhi; and Centre for South Asia–West China Cooperation, Sichuan University, China. Oommen was also a Hermes Post Doctoral Fellow at  MIGRINTER, University de Poitiers France and Visiting Graduate Fellow at the Rothberg International School, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Besides, Oommen was also offered two other prestigious fellowships : the Swedish Institute Guest Post Doctoral Fellowship at Uppsala University Sweden and the Visiting Senior Fellowship at MACIMIDE, University of Maastricht University, Netherlands,  both of which he declined. 

His major publications include  Ethnicity, Marginality and Identity: The Jews of Cochin in Israel (Manak, 2011) and South Asian Migration toGulf Countries : History, Policies, Development (Routledge, 2015). Oommen has conducted extensive field research in  Israel, Palestine,  Kuwait,  France and  Kerala.