Coping with temporariness: Space appropriation of South Asian migrants in Muscat, Oman

Abstract

This article deals with the practices of South Asian migrant workers appropriating space in Muscat, Oman. Due to temporary employment contracts, low income, and long working hours, in addition to living in a fragmented car-dependent city, their access to the city is spatially and temporally limited. This raises the question of their opportunities and limitations for space appropriation in Muscat. In this paper, we first describe the urban and political context that leads to their limitations and temporalities. We then establish a theoretical framework to define the roles of space, migration, and time. Adopting a qualitative approach combining interviews and observation, we then focus on one location as a case study and analyse how its visitors, low-income and middle-income migrant workers, appropriate space according to their daily needs. Highlighting the tension between rigid constraints and constant change, we conclude by presenting the social and spatial products of the process of space appropriation and respond to the discourse on the production of space through the lens of temporary migration.