Revolutions seldom involve more than one percent of the population. However, in Bahrain, a small island nation with a population of around 570,000, twenty percent of the population took to the streets in February 2011 to demand greater democratic reform, making it “proportionally one of the greatest shows of ‘people power’ in modern history.” The regime's response was disproportionally brutal. Saudi-dominated troops from the Gulf Cooperation Council Peninsula Shield Force were “invited to” or “invaded” Bahrain, depending on who is telling the story. Under cover of the Saudi military, Bahrain's security forces killed dozens of civilians, torturing, maiming, and raping many others. The arsenal of repressive techniques was exhaustive. Belonging also was used as a tool of repression, with many being stripped of their Bahraini citizenship on spurious, terror-related charges.

On 25 October 2017, the Saudi Arabian regime granted citizenship to Sophia, a humanoid robot developed in Hong Kong. Sophia became the world's first robot citizen. Some of the globe's wealthiest investors, foreign dignitaries, and foremost economists, journalists, and public relations experts celebrated the conferral firsthand. They were guests of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh, where they attended the inaugural Future Investment Initiative. Sponsored by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, the forum heralded the regime's renewed commitment to diversify the country's petro-economy, develop its human capital, and increase its global investment competitiveness. The national reform plan, dubbed Vision 2030, dominated the event's discussions. Vision 2030 was an ambitious blueprint that had as its goal nothing short of overhauling everyday life in Saudi Arabia. It entailed revamping bureaucratic capacity, building global gigacities, and opening the country to visitors and investors alike. Developing the tourism and entertainment sectors were key. Through these lucrative socio-technical experiments, the regime hoped to tackle the dire economic, financial, and social challenges it faced. To appeal to the global investor, it framed the reforms in the language of high-tech modernization, sustainable development, and socioreligious tolerance. Sophia, and all the trappings of modernization that “she” embodied, epitomized the ruling class's entrepreneurial vision for a new Saudi Arabia, and in turn, a new global citizen: the naturalized elite as well as the new Saudi Arabian citizen-subject (Fig. 1).

A woman takes on work repairing cell phones in a small town in the southern governorate of Lahj. In Aden, an ‘aqīla (neighborhood representative) refuses to authorize the marriage of an underage girl. In a rural village outside of Sana'a, women petition the shaykh for permission to build a community center in which they can market home crafts to other women. Young women and men in Ibb and in Hadramawt work as volunteer teachers and coordinate with very different municipal authorities to ensure children can learn. And in the divided city of Taiz, a youth organization trains internally displaced Yemenis in the maintenance of the solar technologies that are keeping the city running.

How do perceptions of not belonging inform economic life? For many young Omanis, the labor market is a site of contestation and a space of struggle. In this essay, I explore a neglected dimension of belonging in the Gulf—citizen labor—by looking at Omani millennials in the labor market. Despite holding legal citizenship, a sense of belonging remains elusive in much of the private sector. Many Omani young people perceive a tenuous economic citizenship, complicating narratives around belonging or not belonging in the Arabian Peninsula. I draw from lessons learned while researching my current book and exploring social relations and regulation of labor markets, and reflect on how the knowledge and theories produced concerning Gulf labor markets rarely engage with the citizens in them.

There is no precise English equivalent to this Hindustani proverb. A rolling stone gathers no moss, between the devil and the deep blue sea, between a rock and a hard place, torn between two masters—none of these really fit. The dhobi ka kuta is the dog who figuratively and literally runs every day between two places, two obligations, and two choices. Does he stay behind to guard the master's house or does he guard his master as he washes clothes by the river? There will be a trade-off either way. The phrase does not conjure up vagabond restlessness or nomadic liberation. It evokes the anxiety of rootlessness, and the lack of certainty about choice and loyalty. It is about the doubt cast your way for not picking one thing over the other. It is about being stuck in the vagaries of the in-between.