The word “kafala” in Arabic has traditionally been used to describe a social and moral “responsibility to another.”  Researchers Ray Jureidini and Said Fares Hassan write, “kafala contracts were used to protect the weak and vulnerable by instituting the patronage of a prominent local who provided whatever protection was required.” Think of raising an orphaned child, for example. In business, kafala originally referred to contracts where a guarantor assumes liability for another person (e.g. a cosigner for a loan).    Kafala nowadays is often used to describe the legal relationship between businesses and migrant workers. Employers, typically citizens, act as sponsors for workers and assume legal responsibility for their movement and actions in exchange for their right to work in a geographic area. 

By exam-ining how movement toward equality has actually been produced, wecan learn precious lessons for our future and better understand thestruggles and mobilizations that have made this movement possible,as well as the institutional structures and legal, social, fiscal, educa-tional, and electoral systems that have allowed equality to become alasting reality.

If this were true for modern society, it has multiplied in ourage of social media, in which control and value are indissolubly linked to the machine ensemblesthat comprise contemporary digital infrastructures.