Constructing Qatar: Migrant Narratives from the Margins of the Global System

Every year, tens of thousands of men and women from South Asia, Africa, and other parts of the world journey to Qatar and the other petroleum-rich states of the Arabian peninsula to work. As construction workers, drivers, servants, accountants, shopkeepers, custodians, general laborers, and countless other vocations, these men and women toil in relative obscurity. Constructing Qatar is an attempt to illuminate the experiences and perspectives of these transnational labor migrants. The stories carry the reader from the villages of Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, and many other places to the labor camps of Qatar. The chapters were authored by six researchers: Elma Atic, Nora Biary, Zaid Haque, Elizabeth Jose, Yogamaya Mantha and Marwa Saleh. In total, the book contains eighteen meticulously crafted migration stories, two photo essays by Kristin Giordano, and an introduction by editors Andrew Gardner (University of Puget Sound) and Autumn Watts (Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar).