I am a scholar of international relations, and comparative and global political economy, with a broad interest in development, labour, and migration regimes. My recent work demonstrates how the present and future of work in local spaces are entangled within the trajectories of global capitalist development. I have conducted field work in the Arabian Peninsula, South and Southeast Asia, and East Africa on the politics of development planning and economic security, migration regimes, labour governance and organising, transnational migrant advocacy networks, infrastructure projects and south-south development financing, entrepreneurship, and gig work and digital platforms. My monograph, Millennial Dreams in Oil Economies: Job Seeking and the Global Political Economy of Labour in Oman (Cambridge University Press, 2025), won the 2025 AGAPS Biennial Book Award.

More information about Crystal Ennis

Crystal A. Ennis is a University Lecturer of Comparative and Global Political Economy, teaching in International Relations and Middle East Studies programmes. Her research agenda involves the comparative study of power and governance around economic security and development, work, and inequality. She focuses on resource and labour-dependent economies, innovation-driven development, just energy transitions, and key global migration corridors.

Her recent monograph, Millennial Dreams in Oil Economies: Job Seeking and the Global Political Economy of Labour in Oman (Cambridge University Press, 2025), won the 2025 AGAPS Biennial Best Book Award. She is co-editor of Re-thinking the Political Economy of Non-Western Migration Governance: Assemblages of Migration (Palgrave Macmillan, 2026) with S. Eraliev and The South Asia to Gulf Migration Governance Complex (Bristol University Press, 2022) with N. Blarel. Crystal has also published in New Political Economy, Third World Quarterly, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, and Global Labour Journal, among others.

Her current research agenda aims to shape emerging frameworks, contributing comparative, historicised understandings of how AI and platform capitalism unevenly impact and securitise workers and labour migration regimes globally, with a focus on non-Western contexts.

Employment and Training

Crystal is Associate Editor of International Studies Review (ISR), the flagship review journal of the International Studies Association (ISA), President of the Association for Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Studies (AGAPS), and Research fellow at the Governance of Migration and Diversity (GMD) Centre, Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Universities. She coordinates the Global Political Economy specialisation in the MA International Relations and is the Economy track leader in the BA International Studies. She co-directs the Leiden Political Economy Group.

She served as the chair of Middle Eastern Studies from 2019 to 2021. She has held visiting fellow and research appointments at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (Berlin, Germany), Economic Planning Policies and Economic Studies unit, Dubai Economy (UAE), Centre for Development Studies, Kerala (India), and the University of Nizwa (Oman).

Crystal received her PhD from the University of Waterloo (Canada), where she was trained in the fields of International Relations, Global Governance, and Global Political Economy.  She has carried out fieldwork across the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, Europe, and East Africa, involving multidisciplinary and multi-method research (including archival, ethnographic, interview, and survey methods).

Prior to joining Leiden in 2014, Crystal lectured at the University of Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University, and Shinas College. She was involved in academic programme planning and curriculum development at York University (Canada) and during her time as the inaugural head of the Business Studies department at Shinas College of Technology (Oman). In non-profit, Crystal worked as a research associate for the Jerusalem Old City Initiative, a track-two diplomacy initiative seeking governance and security solutions for the Old City of Jerusalem, as a youth programme coordinator at the Multicultural Council of Windsor and Essex County, and also served as a member of a Canadian International Development Agency funded project with the United Group for Democratic Development in Cairo, Egypt.

Education

PhD, Global Governance, University of Waterloo (2009 - 2013)
MA, Political Science, University of Windsor (2005)
Bachelor of Commerce (Honours), University of Windsor (2003)

Grants and Awards

• 2025 AGAPS Biennial Book Award for Millennial Dreams in Oil Economies: Job Seeking and the Global Political Economy of Labour in Oman. Cambridge University Press, 2025. (2025)
• EU Horizon MSCA Staff Exchanges Consortium member/Leiden PI: “MARS: Non-Western Migration Regimes in a Global Perspective” (Lund University, with S. Eraliev and R. Urinboyev). (2024-2028)
• Global Transformation and Governance Challenges, Seed Grant: “Governing Delivery Platform Companies” (with Y. Tan, and S. Jhagroe). (2023-2024)
• Faculty of Humanities Fund for Research Cooperation: “Caste and International Relations,” with V. Thakur. (2023)
• Oman Studies Centre Fellowship, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin (2021)
• Asian Modernities & Traditions (AMT), Phase II Large Research Grants: “The Globalised Politics of Migration Governance in the South-to-West Asian Migration Corridor,” with N. Blarel (2017-2019)
• Faculty of Humanities Research Traineeship: “Highway to Globalization: Suez & the Transformation of Transoceanic Shipping, 1869-1956,” with A. van Dissel (2018)
• Asian Modernities & Traditions (AMT), Small Research Grant: “South-south investment cooperation between Asia and the Gulf in Africa” with J. Wang (2015)
• Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Doctoral Fellowship (2012-2013)
• University of Waterloo President’s Scholarship (2012-2013)
• Balsillie Doctoral Fellowship (2009-2013)
• Provost Doctoral Entrance Award for Women (2009-2010)
• Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) grant: “Good governance and democratic reform,” Cairo, Egypt (2005)
• University of Windsor Summer Research Scholarship (2005)
• University of Windsor Postgraduate Tuition Scholarship (2004-2005)
• University of Windsor Fall Recognition of Achievement Award (2003)
• University of Windsor Community Scholars Award (2001-2002)

Supervision Statement

I am interested in topics that contribute to a research agenda diversifying the fields of International Relations (IR) and Global Political Economy (GPE), contributing to non-Western / Global IR and critical GPE. Students with projects that complement my research agenda and trace the global labour regimes, migration corridors, platform capitalism, financial infrastructures, and resource (inter)dependencies through which power operate, and how actors and stakeholders navigate and govern these challenges, are welcome to approach me. Students focusing on the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula, and the flow(s) of capital or labour within and across the Gulf, Indian Ocean and wider Asia are especially welcome.

Topics may include the (global) governance of labour and migration in the non-Western world; ports and global value chains; gender and social reproduction; youth and the GPE of work; economic nationalism/ dependency and local content policies; south-south development cooperation; central bank histories; AI and digital platforms; economic security; economic citizenship.

Publications