3. Blogs

A Team of National Representation? Migration Histories in the Context of the FIFA World Cup

Blog 26, January 19, 2022

Gijs van Campenhout is an Assistant Professor in Geography, Youth and Education at Utrecht University, and a member of the Sport and Nation network.

Kafala Labor System Reform and the 2022 World Cup

Blog 25, December 20, 2021

Ngoc Nguyen is a writer and graduate of Georgetown University in Qatar. They authored the thesis “From Slavery to Kafala: British Colonialism and Its Impact on Labor Governance in the Persian Gulf 1800–1950,” and previously interned at CIRS, The Brookings Doha Center, and Al Jazeera English.

World Cup 2022 and Qatar’s Mass Tourism Challenge: A Sustainable Future?

Blog 24, November 23, 2021

Alan S. Weber is a multi-disciplinary humanities scholar at Weill Cornell Medicine in Qatar with over 170 publications in the fields of education, literature, sociology, and the history of science and medicine. He was the lead organizer of the 1st International Conference on the Medical Humanities in the Middle East in 2018. He also chaired the first International Conference on Healthcare Communication the Middle East in 2020, and in 2018 was elected as the Qatar National Representative for the International Association for Communication in Healthcare (EACH). His research on Internet Health websites in the Middle East won first prize in 2015 from the Qatar National Research Fund, and he shared with his WCMQ colleagues the 2017 Outstanding Book Award from the U.S. National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). He has published widely on tourism in the Middle East and GCC.

From Nationalism to Internationalism: Sports Policies and Qatar’s International Status

Blog 23, November 7, 2021

Ahmed Badran is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Department of International Affairs, College of Arts and Sciences, Qatar University. He holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy from the University of Exeter. Badran’s research interests extend to cover different areas of policy studies, including regulatory governance and politics of sports.

The World Cup and Politics of the Pandemic in Qatar

Blog 22, October 24, 2021

Uday Chandra is an Assistant Professor of Government at Georgetown University in Qatar. His current research focuses on the cultural politics of migration in Doha.

The Need for Better Data on Health, Injury, and Death in Qatar

Blog 21, October 3, 2021

Andreas D. Flouris, FAME Laboratory, Department of Physical Education and Sport Science, University of Thessaly, Greece

Leonidas G. Ioannou, FAME Laboratory, Department of Physical Education and Sport Science, University of Thessaly, Greece

Zahra R. Babar, Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS), Georgetown University in Qatar

Qatar’s Golden Opportunity: Create Football Fandoms for Migrant Workers

Blog 20, September 14, 2021

Susan Dun is Associate Professor in Residence in the Media Industries and Technologies Program at Northwestern University in Qatar.  Her research program investigates the intersection between globalization and attempts to develop soft power via sports and health initiatives in the Arab world. Her research focuses on assessing and understanding how the changes brought by globalization and attempted to develop soft power have affected sports activities and health behaviors as well as advanced nations’ agendas. Developing message-based interventions to change sports and health attitudes and behaviors is a key component of her research.ween their education and their assigned roles.

Leveraging the opportunities from Qatar’s 2022 FIFA World Cup: Lessons from the 2010 South Africa FIFA World Cup

Blog 19, June 7, 2021

Kamilla Swart is an Associate Professor in the Masters of Sport Management and Entertainment, Division of Engineering Management and Decision Sciences in the College of Science and Engineering, Hamad Bin Khalifa University. Her research interests include sport tourism, with a specific focus on mega-events, sustainability and legacy. Swart was instrumental in developing the 2010 FIFA World Cup Research Agenda and is also driving the 2022 FIFA World Cup Research Agenda.  She is the co-editor of Legacies and mega events: Facts or fairytales (Routledge, 2018). Her work has centered on contributing to sport tourism knowledge in the developing context, and in the global South in particular.

Qatar Airways’ Football Sponsorships as a Foreign Policy Strategy

Blog 18, May 26, 2021

Natasha Vincent is an incoming Investment Banking Analyst at J.P. Morgan in London. She graduated from Georgetown University in Qatar with a degree in International Politics, and minors in Arabic and Economics. She authored an honors thesis examining the significance of Qatar Airways and Emirates to small state foreign policy in the Persian Gulf.

How the World Cup Impacts Sustainability in Qatar: Which Challenges Remain after the Tournament?

Blog 17, May 11, 2021

Katrin Scholz-Barth is Principal of Katrin Scholz-Barth Consulting and President of SustainableQATAR, a Think and Do Tank that acts as a catalyst for climate action in Qatar, toward a more sustainable Qatar where the power of one—personal actions and informed consumer decisions—change behaviors and drive regenerative development. As part of the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar program from 2012–2015, she helped define and create the program-wide sustainability and innovation strategies. Scholz-Barth has taught at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania and is coauthor of Green Roof Systems: A Guide to the Planning, Design and Construction of Building Over Structure (Wiley and Sons, 2009).

Qatar’s Empowered Sportswoman Narrative May Obscure Inequalities

Blog 16, April 25, 2021

Geoff Harkness is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Rhode Island College. He is the author of two books, including Changing Qatar: Culture, Citizenship, and Rapid Modernization (New York University Press 2020). Harkness’s scholarship includes ten journal articles, book chapters, and invited essays based on fieldwork he conducted in Qatar and Iraq.

Qatar’s Labor Rights Legacy: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Blog 15, April 11, 2021

Andreas Krieg is an Assistant Professor at the School of Security Studies at King’s College London, Royal College of Defence Studies, and fellow at the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies. He has spent more than ten years living, studying, and working across the MENA region. Andreas was able to complement his years in the Levant, i.e. Lebanon, Syria, Israel, and Palestine, with four years in Qatar where he was involved in delivering a strategic contract between the State of Qatar, the UK Ministry of Defence, and King’s College London.

Citizenship vs. Identity: What a Passport or Football Jersey Can and Cannot Show

Blog 14, March 29, 2021

Eddie Kolla teaches history at Georgetown in Qatar and is currently the 2020–2021 CIRS Faculty Fellow.

Why the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar Should be not Boycotted

Blog 13, March 18, 2021

Danyel Reiche is Visiting Associate Professor at Georgetown University Qatar. He is on leave from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon where he is a tenured Associate Professor of Comparative Politics. His past research has focused on two areas: energy and sport policy and politics; the latter his recent priority. He is the author of Success and Failure of Countries at the Olympic Games (Routledge, 2016) and co-editor with Tamir Sorek of Sport, Politics, and Society in the Middle East (Oxford University Press, 2019). Reiche is the faculty lead of the GU-Q/CIRS research initiative “Building a Legacy: Qatar FIFA World Cup 2022.”

Can Qatar Show FIFA the Way? Towards More Flexible Eligibility rules in International Football

Blog 12, March 14, 2021

Gijsbert Oonk is the founding director of the Sport and Nation network. He is interested in migration, citizenship, and national identity.

Qatar’s 2022 World Cup has Put the Spotlight on Migrant Workers, but What Legacy will it Deliver?

Blog 11, February 21, 2021

James Lynch is a director of FairSquare, which carries out research and advocacy on human rights issues. He led Amnesty’s work on migrant workers in Qatar for several years and was the lead author on major reports on the construction sector and domestic workers. Prior to that, he worked at the British Embassy in Doha as the political and press/public affairs officer.

Not the 2022 World Cup, Joe Biden Paved the Way for Ending the Qatar Blockade

Blog 10, January 31, 2021

Hilal Khashan is a Professor of Political Science at the American University of Beirut. He is the author of six books, including Hizbullah: A Mission to Nowhere (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2019). He has more than 150 articles published in journals, such as The Journal of Conflict Resolution, The Scientific Journal of Religion, Orbis, Security Dialogue, The Brown Journal of World Affairs, International Affairs, World Affairs, Middle East Quarterly, Shia Affairs Journal, Il Politico, and Geopolitical Futures. He is currently completing a book titled Saudi Arabia: The Dilemma of Political Change and the Illusion of Economic Development.

The Impact of the Lifting of the Blockade on the Qatar World Cup

Blog 9, January 24, 2021

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen is a Fellow for the Middle East at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and an Associate Fellow at Chatham House. He is the author of five books on the Gulf States, most recently Qatar and the Gulf Crisis (Hurst & Co., 2020).

The Ongoing Struggle for a Qatar 2022 Narrative

Blog 8, January 11, 2021

Paulino R. Robles-Gil Cozzi is a PhD candidate at the Gulf Studies Center, Qatar University and an Islamic Studies graduate from Hamad Bin Khalifa University. His research interests lie at the intersection of Islam, geopolitics, and the Global South.

Why Media Liberalization in Qatar Would Serve an Important 2022 Legacy

Blog 7, December 16, 2020

Craig L. LaMay is a professor at Northwestern University in Chicago, currently in residence at the university’s campus in Qatar, where he has served as dean and director of the journalism program. He teaches media law and journalism ethics.

How Powerful has Qatar become in Elite Sport?

Blog 6, December 1, 2020

Nadim Nassif is an Associate Professor in Physical Education and Sports in Notre Dame University – Louaize (NDU). He created the World Ranking of Countries in Elite Sport, which annually measures the performance of all the countries in all the recognized sport. He is also member of the coaching staff of both the Lebanese futsal and mixed martial arts national teams.

The Qatar World Cup 2022 Stadiums Are Built, But Will Pandemic-Era Fans Still Come?

Blog 5, November 16, 2020

Simon Chadwick is Director of Eurasian Sport, Professor of the Eurasian Sport Industry and Director of the Centre for the Eurasian Sport Industry, at Emlyon Business School, based in Paris and Shanghai. He is Senior Fellow of the University of Nottingham’s China Policy Institute, where he is Founding Director of the China Soccer Observatory.

FIFA World Cup 2022: Increased Opportunities for Qatar’s Women Footballers?

Blog 4, November 3, 2020

Charlotte Lysa is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, University of Oslo. She holds a PhD in Middle Eastern studies from the Institute of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages from 2020.

The Qatar World Cup: Dreaming of Bridging the Gulf Rift 

Blog 3, October 29, 2020

James M. Dorsey is an award-winning journalist and a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies and  the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute. He is also the author of the syndicated column and blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

National Identity in the Qatar Men’s National Football Team 

Blog 2, October 25, 2020

Ross Griffin is an Assistant Professor of Postcolonial Literature in Qatar University. His research interests include the relationship between sport and culture, national identity, and sports history. He has published work on a range of subjects including the social legacies of Qatar’s hosting of mega-sporting events, as well as Orientalism in the British broadsheet press coverage of the 2022 World Cup.

Avoiding White Elephants: Why the Education City Stadium is Built to Last

Blog 1, October 25, 2020

Danyel Reiche joined Georgetown University Qatar in summer 2020 as a Visiting Associate Professor. It is the second time he is joining GU, after being a Visiting Assistant Professor at the main campus in Washington D.C. in 2006-2007. He is on leave from the American University of Beirut (AUB) in Lebanon where he is a tenured Associate Professor of Comparative Politics.