CIRS Lunch Talk: Who Makes Enterprise Possible?

Governance, Migrant Entrepreneurship, and Relational Infrastructure in the Gulf

How do people gain the means to participate in economic life when legal avenues are unavailable? This talk draws on fieldwork with migrant entrepreneurs in Qatar, many of whom run businesses they do not formally own, to ask what migrant entrepreneurship can tell us about governance. It introduces the concept of relational infrastructure to show how the conditions that enable migrant entrepreneurs to sustain their businesses are built and maintained through relationships.