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DTSTART:20250101T000000
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DTSTART;TZID=Asia/Qatar:20260624T080000
DTEND;TZID=Asia/Qatar:20260624T170000
DTSTAMP:20260630T224524
CREATED:20251009T093108Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260623T070508Z
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SUMMARY:Book Talk: Remittance as Belonging
DESCRIPTION:The Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) hosted a thought-provoking book talk with Professor Hasan Mahmud\, author of Remittance as Belonging: Global Migration\, Transnationalism\, and the Quest for Home (Rutgers University Press). Moderated by Zahra Babar and Professor Amanda Garrett\, the conversation delved into the moral\, social\, and emotional dimensions of remittances\, reimagining them as acts of care\, obligation\, and identity that link migrants to their homes across borders. Drawing from ethnographic research with Bangladeshi migrants in Los Angeles and Tokyo\, Professor Mahmud explored how remittance practices challenge conventional understandings of integration\, citizenship\, and belonging\, revealing the deeply human stories behind economic exchange and migration. \n\n\n\n\n\nOpening remarks introduced the book’s core proposition: remittances are not simply economic transfers. Rather\, they are social acts grounded in obligation\, care\, and identity. The event also formed part of a broader CIRS research initiative on migration from the Global South. Drawing on three and a half years of ethnographic fieldwork with Bangladeshi migrants in Los Angeles and Tokyo\, Professor Mahmud advanced a multidimensional conception of “home” as locational\, relational\, and aspirational. He showed how migrants enacted belonging across borders through financial support\, investments\, and gifts\, and he challenged economic models that reduced remittances to altruism versus self interest. Instead\, he located remitting in enduring social relationships and cultural expectations that shaped who sent money\, to whom\, and why. \n\nProfessor Mahmud contrasted incorporation contexts. In Japan\, restrictive legal pathways and persistent social exclusion encouraged migrants to imagine their stays as temporary; remittances there tended to be frequent and oriented toward return\, including investments in land and housing. In the United States\, even with opportunities for settlement\, citizenship\, and family reunification\, migrants continued to remit\, although motives shifted over time: early transfers sustained relatives\, later transfers helped restore status through property investments\, and established professionals often turned to philanthropic giving in home communities. Across both sites\, Bangladesh remained an anchor of belonging. \n\nAudience questions highlighted the emotional labor that underwrote remittances on both sides of the border\, including gendered obligations and intra family negotiations. Participants also raised the phenomenon of reverse remittances\, when families in Bangladesh temporarily supported migrants during periods of precarity abroad. These dynamics complicated policy narratives that instrumentalized remittances as development finance and underscored the limitations of treating money in motion as a simple economic variable. \n\nArticle by Maryam Daud\, Administrative Assistant at CIRS. \n\nSpeakers:\n\n\nHasan Mahmud is assistant professor in residence at Northwestern University in Qatar. He has a PhD in sociology from the University of California Los Angeles\, an MA in global studies from Sophia University in Tokyo\, and an MSS and a BSS in sociology from the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh. He was a visiting faculty member in the Department of Sociology at Ball State University prior to coming to NU-Q. His teaching and research interests include sociological theories\, globalization\, international migration and development\, identity politics\, and global ethnography. His research has appeared in such publications as Current Sociology\, Migration & Development\, Contemporary Justice Review\, and Journal of Socio-economic Research and Development. \n\n\n\nAmanda Garrett is Assistant Professor of Comparative and International Politics at Georgetown University in Qatar. Her research focuses on migration and ethnic diversity in advanced democracies\, including immigration and integration\, ethnic violence\, minority political incorporation\, and Islam in Western societies. Her current book project\, developed from her Harvard PhD dissertation When Cities Fight Back\, examines when religious or ethnic minorities use violence as political expression in France\, the United Kingdom\, the Netherlands\, and the United States. She has held appointments at Harvard University\, New York University\, Sciences Po\, and the German Bundestag\, and received the 2014 APSA Ernst B. Haas Best Dissertation Award. \n\n\n\nZahra Babar is the Executive Director at CIRS at Georgetown University in Qatar. Previously\, she has served with the International Labor Organization and the United Nations Development Program. Her current research interests include rural development\, migration and labor policies\, and citizenship in the Persian Gulf states.
URL:https://cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu/event/book-talk-remittance-as-belonging/
CATEGORIES:Dialogue Series
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DTSTART;TZID=Asia/Qatar:20260625T080000
DTEND;TZID=Asia/Qatar:20260625T170000
DTSTAMP:20260630T224524
CREATED:20251028T121509Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260624T091309Z
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SUMMARY:Launch Event: Migrant Stories from Qatar
DESCRIPTION:Join us for the launch of the Migrant Stories from Qatar project website! \n\nThis project brings together oral histories from migrant workers across Qatar\, offering rare insight into their lived experiences and contributions to the country’s social and economic fabric. The six principal investigators will reflect on the research process\, its findings\, and the broader significance of archiving migrant voices in Qatar\, an endeavor that seeks to reframe narratives of labor\, belonging\, and memory in the Gulf. \n\n\nMore info\n\n\nOn November 10\, the Center for International and Regional Studies held the official launch of the Migrant Stories in Qatar project website\, a digital platform dedicated to preserving and sharing the lived experiences of migrant workers in Qatar. Conceived as a long–term public resource\, the project curates oral histories\, testimonials\, and personal narratives that illuminate the social worlds\, aspirations\, and challenges of the migrant communities whose labor has shaped the contemporary Gulf. It seeks to democratize knowledge production by placing migrant workers not merely as subjects of study\, but as active contributors and curators of their own histories. \n\nZahra Babar\, the project emerged from intimate exchanges with migrants and from frustration with how their voices are routinely mediated\, silenced\, or reduced to anonymous data points. The website functions as a counter archive that democratizes knowledge production by coproducing narratives with migrant workers themselves and making these stories accessible to migrants\, their families\, and wider publics. \n\nSpeakers at the launch highlighted the project’s methodological\, ethical\, and political stakes. Trish Kahle and Nadya Sbaiti situated the archive within broader efforts to document global south histories at a time when formal state archives remain inaccessible\, arguing that migrant narratives reveal migrants not as marginal to the Gulf\, but as central to its social and economic order.  \n\nNoha Aboueldahab drew attention to the global significance of these testimonies\, observing that themes of law\, its absence\, and its uneven application recur across the interviews. She argued that oral histories offer multiple truths that complicate existing legal narratives and have important implications for fields such as international law and transitional justice. Integrating such testimonies into legal analysis\, she suggested\, could transform understandings of rights\, accountability\, and lived experience. \n\nThe project also involves extensive technical and linguistic labor. Suzi Migani\, responsible for recording and editing the English–language podcasts\, spoke about the logistical challenges of conducting interviews and the delicate process of editing without inadvertently shaping the narrative. She explained that the platform provides two versions of each interview: a full recording with only identifying details removed\, and a shorter public podcast episode of approximately fifteen minutes. Misba Bhatti\, who leads editing in hindustaani\, described the complexity of translation and the responsibility to convey meaning and emotion with accuracy and integrity. \n\nTogether\, these interventions articulate Migrant Stories in Qatar as both an archive and a collaborative intellectual project that reclaims authorship for migrant workers in and beyond Qatar.
URL:https://cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu/event/launch-event-migrant-stories-from-qatar/
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DTSTART;TZID=Asia/Qatar:20260628T080000
DTEND;TZID=Asia/Qatar:20260628T170000
DTSTAMP:20260630T224524
CREATED:20260118T132247Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260623T091239Z
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SUMMARY:Cotton Queen | Film Screening and Panel Discussion
DESCRIPTION:Join us for the screening of Cotton Queen\, register below! \n\n\nRegister Here\n\n\nCotton Queen is a 2025 internationally co-produced drama written and directed by Suzi Mirgani in her feature directorial debut. Set in a cotton-farming village in Sudan\, the film follows Nafisa\, a young woman raised on her grandmother’s stories of resistance against British colonial rule. When a businessman arrives with a development scheme centered on genetically engineered cotton\, Nafisa finds herself at the heart of a quiet but fierce power struggle that exposes the entanglements of land\, memory\, gender\, and exploitation. \n\nThe film had its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival in September 2025 and has since received wide international acclaim\, including the Golden Alexander Award for Best Feature Film at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival. With a haunting score by Amine Bouhafa and striking cinematography by Frida Marzouk\, Cotton Queen is a powerful meditation on resistance\, inheritance\, and the cost of so-called progress.
URL:https://cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu/event/film-screening-cotton-queen-by-suzi-mirgani/
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DTSTART;TZID=Asia/Qatar:20260122T130000
DTEND;TZID=Asia/Qatar:20260122T140000
DTSTAMP:20260630T224524
CREATED:20260122T090233Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260623T071115Z
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SUMMARY:Africana Studies Across Regions: In Conversation with Dr. Su’ad Abdul Khabeer and Professor Akintunde Akinade
DESCRIPTION:In Conversation with Dr. Su’ad Abdul Khabeer and Professor Akintunde Akinade \n\nWhat does Africana Studies look like depending on where it is practiced? This lunch talk brings scholars into conversation on how institutional location\, disciplinary training\, and regional context shape the questions\, methods\, and stakes of Africana Studies. The discussion considers the relationship between scholarship and community\, and how recognition\, accountability\, and relevance vary across contexts. \n\nOn January 22nd\, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) hosted Dr. Su’ad Abdul Khabeer\, a scholar of anthropology and Africana Studies at the University of Michigan\, in conversation with Professor Akintunde Akinade\, Professor of Theology at Georgetown University in Qatar. The dialogue explored the intersections of theology\, Africana Studies\, pedagogy\, and resistance within increasingly hostile academic environments. The conversation began with both scholars reflecting on their experiences teaching liberation theology and Africana Studies\, with Professor Akinade sharing that after nearly 30 years of teaching\, he remains passionate about doing “theology for the people” and moving students beyond Eurocentric frameworks to engage with theologies from Latin America\, Africa\, and Asia. He described teaching a course on liberation theologies at GU-Q and noted that students are responsive and engaged\, coming to class ready to move beyond dogma and think critically. \n\nThe discussion outlined the challenges of teaching in the current political climate\, particularly around issues of white supremacy and institutional resistance. Professor Akinade shared a powerful teaching moment from his recent class where he defined white supremacy as sin\, explaining that from a theological perspective\, sin is separation—separation between humanity and divinity\, but in the context of white supremacy\, it manifests as separation between people through hierarchies that deny our shared humanity. Dr. Abdul Khabeer added Islamic theological perspectives on this\, citing scholars like Sherman Jackson who frames white supremacy as shirk\, the association of partners with God that destabilizes the fundamental Islamic principle of tawhid\, the oneness of God. She also mentioned feminist Islamic theologian Amina Wadud who makes similar arguments about patriarchy usurping divine authority. Both scholars emphasized that these theological framings ground their resistance to oppression in core spiritual principles. \n\nThe conversation addressed how space and place shape what can be taught and said. Professor Akinade contrasted his experience teaching in Doha\, where he feels freedom to speak openly\, with his previous position in High Point\, North Carolina\, where students were more resistant to revolutionary content. Dr. Abdul Khabeer spoke candidly about the contemporary reality of teaching in the United States\, including students recording classes to try to “catch” professors saying something controversial\, the need to have attorneys on standby\, meticulous documentation of all interactions\, and the recent elimination of diversity\, equity\, and inclusion programming at the University of Michigan where she teaches. Despite these hostile conditions\, both scholars emphasized the absolute necessity of continuing the work.  \n\nA significant portion of the discussion focused on teaching the humanity of Black people and moving beyond caricatures and stereotypes. Professor Akinade grounded this in the theological concept that everyone is created in the image of God\, making every person precious and important with a divine spark. Dr. Abdul Khabeer described teaching a hip-hop course where she uses albums like Biggie Smalls’ “Ready to Die” to help students understand Black humanity in three dimensions rather than one-dimensional caricatures. She explained that by analyzing songs like “Suicidal Thoughts” and Geto Boys’ “Mind Playing Tricks on Me\,” students learn to understand the socioeconomic contexts shaping people’s lives\, recognize the community and relationships that exist\, and see the solidarity and care present even in difficult circumstances. The goal is to move students beyond seeing Black people as hypersexual and hyperviolent stereotypes to understanding the fuller context of lived experiences\, mental health struggles\, and community support systems. \n\nBoth scholars emphasized the importance of embodiment and experience as forms of knowledge\, challenging the Enlightenment paradigm’s overemphasis on reason alone. Dr. Abdul Khabeer\, who is also a dancer trained in Katherine Dunham’s dance anthropology technique\, explained how everyday life\, how one dresses\, moves through space\, and physically exists\, is deeply tied to history and politics. She shared an example of applying to Vassar College and discovering that the staircases were built for “women’s gaits” but her feet were too large for them\, teaching her viscerally about who institutions are designed for and who they exclude. Professor Akinade connected this to his theological work\, arguing that experience—particularly the experience of those raised in villages\, those who have suffered\, those marginalized—must be used to redefine orthodoxy and challenge monolithic paradigms. He referenced James Cone’s declaration that “God is Black” not as a statement about skin color but as an ontological connection with suffering\, as Cornel West says\, letting suffering speak. \n\nThe conversation highlighted the expansiveness that Africana Studies offers as an epistemology. Dr. Abdul Khabeer explained that unlike the traditional Euro-American tradition that says “you do it this way or that way and that’s it\,” Africana Studies provides more options\, more possibilities\, and therefore more solutions. She attributed this expansiveness to the fact that Black people\, particularly descendants of enslaved people\, are “miracles walking” because they were not meant to survive but did survive through imagination and refusing to accept oppressive narratives as truth. This survival through creativity and alternative ways of knowing gives Africana Studies its power to envision futures and discover opportunities that dominant frameworks foreclose. \n\nProfessor Akinade challenged who gets to define rigorous scholarship\, questioning why work not done at elite Western institutions like Rome\, Columbia\, or Yale is deemed less rigorous. He invoked Steve Biko’s book title “I Write What I Like” to assert his own approach: “I write what I like\, I teach what I like\, and I’m accountable\, accountable to my people.” Both scholars emphasized that scholarship cannot be abstract but must be connected to life\, must be life-giving\, must help things grow. They discussed the danger of “dead scholarship” that exists only in ivory towers disconnected from the communities it purports to study\, though Dr. Abdul Khabeer nuanced this by noting that death itself is a portal to other things in many traditions\, so perhaps the better term is scholarship that is not life-giving\, that doesn’t allow things to grow and flourish. \n\nArticle by Maryam Daud\, Administrative Assistant at CIRS and Honore Mugiraneza\, CIRS Publications Assistant
URL:https://cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu/event/africana-studies-across-regions-in-conversation-with-dr-suad-abdul-khabeer-and-professor-akintunde-akinade/
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