Alex Boodrookas, "Comrades Estranged: Labor and Citizenship in the Twentieth-Century Persian Gulf" (Stanford UP, 2026)

In 1975, Kuwaiti workers orchestrated arguably the most powerful

citizen-led movement for noncitizen rights in the history of the Persian

Gulf. Their efforts built on decades of wide-ranging struggle over the

meanings and outlines of citizenship. During the twentieth century,

anticolonial nationalists, pro-democracy reformers, feminists, and labor

organizers joined forces to fight for a more equitable citizenship

regime. In so doing, they won a remarkable series of victories:

political independence, constitutional rights, and oil nationalization,

reshaping not just Kuwait, but the global petroleum order. This book reframes the history of labor activism, citizenship, and

decolonization in Persian Gulf by centering the history of social

movements—especially organized labor. In ⁠Comrades Estranged: ⁠⁠Labor and Citizenship in the Twentieth-Century Persian Gulf⁠ (Stanford University Press, 2026), Alex

Boodrookas traces how workers and their allies shaped the