4 Harkness 2020 Changing Qatar - Introduction

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Changing Qatar
Culture, Citizenship, and Rapid Modernization
Geoff Harkness
NEW YORK UNIVERSIT Y PRESS

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Maps created by Maps.com, LLC.
Portions of chapter 4 were previously published as “Hijab Micropractices: The Strategic and
Situational Use of Clothing by Qatari Women,” Sociological Forum 34 (2019): 71–90 (copy-
right 2019), and is reprinted with permission from Wiley.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Harkness, Geoffrey Victor, author.
Title: Changing Qatar : culture, citizenship, and rapid modernization / Geoff Harkness.
Description: New York, NY : New York University Press, 2020. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019033759 | ISBN 9781479889075 (cloth) |
ISBN 9781479854820 (paperback) | ISBN 9781479809547 (ebook) |

ISBN 9781479894659 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Sex role—Qatar. | Women—Qatar—Social conditions—21st century. |
Foreign workers—Qatar. | Qatar—Social conditions—21st century. | Qatar—Social life
and customs—21st century.
Classification: LCC HN667.A8 H37 2020 | DDC 305.42095363—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019033759
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Also available as an ebook
For Ben, Emma, and Laura
Contents
Introduction 1
1. Welcome to Doha 21
2. Modern Traditionalism: Qatar and the Arabian Gulf 56
3. Inventing Traditions: The Construction of Sports Culture 93
4. The National Uniform: Strategic Uses of Clothing 124
5. Venus and Mahrs: Dating, Sex, and Marriage 158
6. Expats and Workers: Foreign Labor under Sponsorship 190
Conclusion: The Limits of Modern Traditionalism 225
Acknowledgments 241
Appendix: Researching Qatar 245

Notes 259
References 293
Index 315
About the Author 329
ix
Introduction
“Today, many governments and international powers act with impunity,

without regard for human rights,” Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, cur-
rent emir of Qatar, intoned during his remarks at the Munich Security
Conference in February 2018. Dressed in a stylishly tailored suit and tie,
rather than the traditional white robe and head scarf he wore at home,
Al Thani was in Germany to convince attendees—including about thirty
heads of states and one hundred foreign and defense ministers—that
Qatar had been wronged by a lengthy embargo from Saudi Arabia,
Egypt, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The conflict between these nations became official in June 2017 and
continued unabated. The blockade included severing diplomatic ties and
a complete halt to travel and shipments via land, air, and sea. Borders
were sealed, ambassadors were expelled, media outlets were censored,
and the UAE and Bahrain criminalized online expressions of sympathy
for Qatar, punishable by fifteen years in prison.
Underlying the dispute was a mosaic of tribal rivalries, some of
which date back centuries. The feud’s latest iteration began during the
Arab Spring of 2011–12, when Qatar provided $5 billion in support to
the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic political organization that helped
overthrow the Egyptian government.1 Saudi Arabia and the UAE have
accused the Muslim Brotherhood, and other Qatar-backed groups such

as Hamas, of terrorism. Qatar denies the charge and calls the embargo a
threat to its sovereignty.2
During Al Thani’s remarks in Munich, he wrapped his speech in sec-
ular, au courant expressions that espoused human rights, democracy,
and freedom. “An audience such as yourselves must be able to see why
many people, even entire nations, are losing faith in international ac-
countability,” he proclaimed. “They think—arguably right—that many
of the global mechanisms for conflict resolution and the maintenance
of rights have been paralyzed and sidelined.” Al Thani added, “Suffering
2 | Introduction
and injustice pave the way for terrorism to flourish. . . . Extremist reli-
gious doctrines pose an undeniable challenge to all of us.”
Critics balked that the emir of Qatar—a country denounced for its
abusive treatment of low-wage migrant workers, oppressive gender mi-
lieu, corruption, and support for fundamentalist Islam, a nation an op-ed
writer for the New York Times once declared “Club Med for terrorists”—
would lecture anyone on the finer points of human rights and social jus-
tice.3 Al Thani’s strategy of appealing to different audiences, however, is
a family tradition, passed down to Tamim from his father and his father
before him and dating back to the nineteenth century. Upon deplaning
in Qatar, now bedecked in a traditional white thobe and ghoutra head
scarf, the monarch was greeted by adoring crowds, who cheered and
waved the national flag, some sporting T-shirts emblazoned with his
visage.
This book examines Qatar, a complex, sometimes contradictory na-
tion located on the Arabian Peninsula of the Middle East.4 Qatar is an
oval-shaped peninsula, 99 miles long and 60 miles wide, covering a total
land mass of 4468 square miles. Most of the country consists of desert,
and the weather is characterized by extreme heat and humidity much of
the year. Although it is surrounded on three sides by the Arabian Gulf,
Qatar has no natural drinking water supply and is dependent entirely on
desalination plants.
Since 2013, Qatar has been ruled by Tamim Al Thani, son of the pre-
vious emir, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. Tamim is Qatar’s eighth emir
and eighth consecutive Al Thani; a member of the Al Thani dynasty has
ruled the nation since 1850. Tamim seemingly inherited his father’s am-
bition and capacity for strategic thinking. Hamad wrested control of the
country from his father in a bloodless coup in 1995. At the time, Qatar
was virtually unknown, a bit player that was happy to cash checks from
its petroleum reserves and maintain a low profile. Hamad had higher
aspirations, pouring millions into technology that boosted that nation’s
production and distribution of natural gas. Today Qatar is the world’s
top supplier of liquefied natural gas and holds the third-largest reserve
of natural gas on Earth.5 It is also the wealthiest country in the world per
capita, with an average annual income of nearly $130,000.6
Outside investments are a major source of this wealth. The Qatar In-
vestment Authority manages the nation’s state-owned sovereign monetary
Introduction | 3
Doha, Qatar. (Photo by Alexander R. Wilcox Cheek)
fund, which spent more than $300 billion in the past twelve years to ac-
quire or purchase stakes in foreign retail chains, sports teams, real estate,
airlines, communications companies, and more. These ventures are de-
signed to diversify Qatar’s assets and expand its revenue streams. Its port-
folio includes well-known brands such as Volkswagen, Harrods, Barclays,
and Heathrow Airport, as well as extensive real estate holdings in loca-
tions such as London, New York City, and Washington, DC. Among these
properties is a 10 percent stake in the Empire State Building, purchased in
2016 for $622 million. In June 2017, the iconic New York City structure was
lit up in Qatar’s national colors, maroon and white.7
From Oil to Knowledge

Despite Qatar’s vast wealth, scientists predict the country will run out
of petroleum in the future. Some forecast it will dry up as soon as 2030;
others believe Qatar has a one-hundred-year supply.8 Regardless, the
inexorable loss of hydrocarbon revenues has spurred a desire among the
Qatari leadership to transform the country from a gas-dependent rent-
ier state into a nation whose economy is fueled by knowledge workers.9
4 | Introduction
Qatar Foundation for Education, Science, and Community Devel-

opment, or QF, as it is known locally, is a government entity formed
in 1995. QF’s task is to transform not only the nation’s entire system of
schooling but also the Qatari people’s beliefs, values, and practices re-
lated to education. Its research budget is equal to 2.8 percent of Qatar’s
annual gross domestic product.10
QF’s first endeavor was to overhaul the antiquated primary-school
system. It then developed Education City, a twenty-five-hundred-acre
campus that hosts satellites of eight elite US and European universities:
Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Georgetown, Hautes Études Commerciales
(HEC) Paris, Northwestern, Texas A&M, University College London,
and Virginia Commonwealth. In Qatar, each of these institutions offers
only a few specialties from the home campus, such as Cornell’s medical
program or Texas A&M’s engineering degrees. The aim is to introduce
Western-style higher education in Doha through fields of study most
relevant to Qatar.11 In 2010, a graduate research institution, Hamad
Bin Khalifa University, opened its doors, offering master’s and doctoral
degrees in programs focused on the Arab world. Education City also
houses primary schools, research centers, and Al Jazeera’s children’s
channel.
Additionally, QF has expanded its national institute, Qatar Univer-
sity; funded a branch campus for a Canadian technical school, the Col-
lege of the North Atlantic; and forged a $45 million partnership with
Houston Community College.12 Qatar’s strategic pairings with Western
institutions raise its international profile and mark it as a purveyor of
world-caliber education, a nation worthy of a position on the global
stage. “The government knows that we are not going to forever con-
tinue having this oil,” says Salim, a Qatari who works for a govern-
ment ministry. “They are moving from an economy that depends on
carbon to a knowledge-based economy, through educating people. So
they want to change the picture of Qatar. Instead of thinking of it as a
source of oil and gas, it’s going to be a resource for scientific research
and a place for students all around the world to come and study and
have a good education. We are using our current wealth to build this
new picture.”13
In addition to education, Qatar’s expanding wealth enabled
Hamad (and now Tamim) to pursue a series of social, political, and
Introduction | 5
infrastructural projects that raised the nation’s global stature: providing

free land for the Middle East’s largest US military base; mediating (and
occasionally financing) regional conflicts; funding disaster relief; host-
ing mega sports events, including the 2022 FIFA World Cup; creating
Qatar Airways and erecting a state-of-the-art airport; hosting confer-
ences, multicultural fairs, art exhibitions, concerts, and film festivals;
and building the Al Jazeera media network.14 By pursuing many of these
initiatives simultaneously, Qatar hopes to establish itself, virtually over-
night, as a global destination for business, education, sports, and culture,
a world-caliber player in a “dynamic and increasingly borderless inter-
national economy.”15 In doing so, Qatar intends to boost tourism, stimu-
late outside investment, stabilize its currency, gain worldwide credibility
and trust, expand its political influence, strengthen global alliances, and
polish its public image.16
“We are trying to put Qatar in the picture,” explains Salim. “Many
countries didn’t know about Qatar, but nowadays Qatar has become a
well-known country. When you talk about sports, 2022, when you talk
about culture, heritage, and art, you will find that this is part of what
Qatar is building. In order to be a worldwide country, a more inter-
national environment, we have to have something from everywhere. It
shows importance.”
With a small indigenous citizenry, Qatar is largely dependent on for-
eign labor to staff these initiatives. In 1990, there were 420,000 inhabit-
ants in Qatar. Since then, due to government and industry efforts to
import foreign laborers, the nation’s population has expanded to nearly
three million, an increase of more than 600 percent. Today Qatar nets
a new migrant every fourteen minutes.17 Nearly 90 percent of Qatar’s
inhabitants are expatriates who represent more than one hundred na-
tionalities.18 Just 10.5 percent of Qatari inhabitants are Qatari citizens.
Indians are the largest national group in Qatar, making up 21.8
percent of the population; Bangladeshis and Nepalese each represent
12.5 percent of inhabitants; 9.3 percent of Qatar’s expatriate popula-
tion are Egyptians, followed by Filipinos (7.35 percent), Pakistanis (4.7
percent), and Sri Lankans (4.35 percent). Collectively, citizens of four
MENA nations (Sudan, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon) compose 6.45 per-
cent of Qatar’s population. There are about forty thousand Americans
living in Qatar, 1.25 percent of the country’s total population.19 Some
6 | Introduction
expatriate workers are wealthy; others earn as little as three dollars per
day. Some are educated; others cannot read or write a word. Some were
born in Qatar; most are recent arrivals. From street sweepers to brain
surgeons, these foreign laborers are mutually responsible for helping
turn Qatar into a globally competitive nation. The striking demographic
imbalance between citizens and noncitizens lends increased salience to
national identity in Qatar.
Photos of Doha, Qatar’s capital, taken in the early 1980s show a hand-
ful of modest structures. Today, Doha is a modern boomtown whose
futuristic skyline features a phalanx of more than fifty space-age sky-
scrapers, blanketed in neon and festooned with multicolored lights.20
Taxicabs rush passengers to and from king-sized shopping malls that
flog the wares of Gucci, Sony, Starbucks, and Pizza Hut. There are mu-
seums, universities, sports arenas, concert halls, symphony orchestras,
multiplex cinemas, and ice-skating rinks. Young people huddle together
snapping selfies to post on social media, while others use their phones
to binge on Hulu and hip-hop. “If you look back thirty years ago, it’s like
we started from scratch,” a sixty-year-old Qatari woman explains. “There
was nothing and now there is everything.”
Sand and Desolation

In 1865, an English priest and journeyman named William Palgrave
published a best-selling memoir of a year spent traveling throughout
Arabia. His description of Qatar during this epoch provides an early
account of its burgeoning towns and their inhabitants. At the time,
Qatar was among the pearl capitals of the region, with an industry that
employed thousands. Labeling the country in dismissive terms that

have not changed much over the years, Palgrave characterized Qatar as
“miserable,” “desolate,” and “melancholy,” with “twenty pebbles for every
blade of grass” and little more than “clusters of wretched, most wretched,
earth cottages and palm leaf huts, narrow, ugly, and low.”21
One hundred and forty-three years later, as if descended from Pal-
grave, the American writer Eric Weiner published a travelogue titled The
Geography of Bliss, in which he opines that Qatar has “no culture” and
describes the country as akin to “a good airport terminal: pleasantly air-
conditioned, with lots of shopping, a wide selection of food, and people
Introduction | 7
from around the world.”22 This sentiment is shared by a journalist from

Vulture, who writes that Doha has “a downtown made up of Jetsons-
esque urban clutter that’s at once very alive and totally dead. Cranes and
scaffolding crowd the skyline, and imposing glass edifices shoot up from
the concrete-covered desert. But the city center is almost entirely devoid
of pedestrians and storefronts, or even proper sidewalks, for that matter.
The interior of Qatar is primarily sand and desolation.”23
In portrayals generated by the Western media, Qatari nationals are
often described as coddled, gluttonous, and resentful of foreigners.
For example, an Atlantic feature titled “The Richest, Fattest Nation on
Earth” asserts that Qataris “went from living modest, tribal lifestyles in
the Arabian desert, to living in air-conditioned villas with maids, nan-
nies, gardeners, and cooks.”24 The primary photograph for a New York
Times story titled “Privilege Pulls Qatar toward Unhealthy Choices” de-
picts nationals in traditional attire gorging on Kentucky Fried Chicken,
French fries, and Pepsi.25
The political geographer Natalie Koch points out, “Qatar has not
been treated kindly by the Western press, which has overwhelmingly
cast it as an overly zealous, young upstart, with reckless spending habits
and dubious political alignments.”26 A more substantive media critique
denounces Qatar’s treatment of its low-wage migrant workforce, the
millions of laborers who travel from the Indian subcontinent, South-
east Asia, the Middle East, and Africa for employment in Qatar’s ever-
expanding construction, utility, and service industries.27 For example, in
2019, the UK paper the Sun ran a story under the headline, “Qatar World
Cup ‘Slave Labour’ Shame as Stadium Builders Are Paid Just [$1.29] an
Hour in Oil-Rich State.”28 The scrutiny of Qatar after it won hosting
rights for the 2022 World Cup transformed the country into a worldwide
symbol of exploitive Gulf labor practices.
Gender Distinctions
Qatar also attracts unwanted attention over its alleged mistreatment of
women. For example, the Independent ran a 2018 feature (“Female Ath-
letes Dismayed at the Sport’s Deepening Relationship with Qatar”) that
lambasted the Gulf nation for legally allowing polygamy, marital rape,
and domestic violence. The Gold Medal–winning American pole vaulter
8 | Introduction
Stacy Dragila decried Qatar’s hosting of a championship track and field

event and was quoted as saying, “When you have people hosting who
don’t comply with equal rights it doesn’t make any of us look credible
as athletes. To go into a country where they have this thinking, this
closed-mindedness? It’s not right for this to happen.”29 These and other
headlines help cement negative perceptions about Muslim women from
the Gulf. “The dominant Western stereotype of Arab women depicts
them as passive and oppressed.”30
It is a stereotype that irks Qataris, who take offense at Oriental-
ist tropes about the supposedly backward Middle East. Nationals and
nonnationals describe encounters with Westerners whose assumptions
about the Gulf are based on media caricatures. “They think women live
in tents!” a Qatari woman named Wadha says. “When I went to the US,
they were like, ‘Are you gonna be killed for wearing what you’re wearing
right now? Shouldn’t you be covered?’ There’s all these different stereo-
types: Women can’t do anything; women need to be home and cook. The
only man in their life is their dad, brother, or husband. And I’m just like,
‘What?’ No, this is not how it goes. We don’t ride camels. They think we
do everything. No, we have [domestic] helpers. We have McDonald’s.”
Gender and nationality are the two most significant statuses held by
every person who lives in Qatar. The anthropologist Sharon Nagy ar-
gues, “Nationality is more sensitive to global relations, while differen-
tiation by gender is structured in accordance with local relations.”31 In
this book, I explore how nationality is shaped at the local level in the
context of Qatar’s rapid development. Public advocacy for female em-
powerment is part of Qatar’s effort to become a world superpower, so
women feature prominently here, although this is not a book about gen-
der per se. (I suspect research settings where men feature prominently
are not viewed as somehow imbalanced or necessarily about gender.)
Working alone and with coauthors, I previously published a series of
articles that examine portions of my Qatar data with an explicit focus
on gender and feminism.32 There have also been a number of excel-
lent studies of women in Qatar published in the recent past that ex-
amine feminist issues.33 Those perspectives influenced this book but
also motivated me to shift my analytical framework. Moreover, gender
intersects with nationality and citizenship in ways that render some
distinctions moot.
Introduction | 9
In Qatar, as elsewhere, social life is organized around gender, with

divergent spheres for men and women. This gender polarization is re-
flected and reaffirmed in innumerable facets of Qatari society, including,
for example, the black-white contrast of “traditional” clothing. The attire
is not legally required, but most Qataris wear it. This is partly because of
social pressure but also because of incentives—the clothing instantly be-
stows its wearer with high status due to its association with citizenship.
Sometimes beginning as early as childhood, most Qatari males
begin to wear thobes—long, white cloaks over matching pants and
a high-collared shirt, the entire ensemble stiffly starched, sharply
pressed, and bleached. Atop their heads, males affix white scarves,
ghutrahs, which are elaborately wrapped and held in place with a black
cord known as an agal. Some men sport red-and-white-checkered
head scarves in the winter months, replacing them with white coun-
terparts in the summer.
Most postpubescent Qatari females outfit themselves in black, full-
length body cloaks known as abayas. These are typically topped off by
shaylas, which are long, black, rectangular scarves that wrap around the
head and neck, camouflaging hair and skin. Although the word hijab is
typically used in the West to refer to a head scarf, in Doha and much of
the Gulf, hijab can refer to the abaya, the shayla, or both.34
There is disagreement regarding the role of Qatari women in society:
traditionalists believe that a woman’s place is at the center of the family,
while a younger generation of women wants to work and have an ac-
tive social life. The Islamic feminist scholar Valentine Moghadam asserts
that petrodollars and high salaries for men in the Gulf reinforced the
“patriarchal gender contract—the implicit and often explicit agreement
that men are the breadwinners and. . . . women are wives, homemakers,
mothers, and caregivers.”35 Under this arrangement, men are the pro-
tectors of women and also their overlords. Beliefs and attitudes about
gender shape gender roles but also influence cultural beliefs that are
embedded into institutions such as marriage and the law. This stratifies
men’s and women’s access to resources, rights, and mobility.36
Gender differences are reaffirmed via institutions such as the public
education system, which segregates males and females, but also through
cultural practices, such as socializing along gender lines.37 Similar to
Gulf nations such as the UAE, Qatar does not demand strict gender
10 | Introduction
separation. Men and women work, dine, shop, and interact frequently,
in both public and private settings. Despite this, however, gender seg-
regation is normative, particularly for middle- and upper-class Qatari
women, who enjoy less access to public space than men do.38
The Qatari government is unabashed in its support for gender equal-
ity. Women in Qatar are allowed to work, drive, and hold office. The
country’s national development plan promises to empower women po-
litically and economically. Qatar’s college campuses have four times as
many female students as males, and the number of working women
is rising. Qatar made international headlines in 2012 when it sent fe-
male athletes to the Olympics for the first time. These and other efforts
attempt to counter stereotypes about oppressed Gulf women. Rather,
Qatar promotes itself as a supporter of female empowerment through a
comprehensive narrative intended to propel Qatar into the future.
National Vision
Qatar’s economic transformation and the global reliance on oil and nat-
ural gas have brought foreign investment and Western workers to the
country, spurring social and cultural changes that have proven trans-
formative. The Qatari government’s embrace of communication and
transportation technologies has led to a permeation of Western beliefs,
values, and practices, particularly among young people in Doha. This
has given rise to concerns that indigenous customs and traditions will
be diluted or lost in Qatar’s relentless development.
Doha’s rapid ascent has not been embraced by all factions of its citi-
zenry. Some of Qatar’s most conservative voices are long-standing tribal
leaders. The emir is powerful but is also required to rule in accordance

with Islam and therefore “must retain the support of the religious com-
munity, which often asserts itself in such areas as media censorship, edu-
cation regulations, and the status of women.”39 Within these factions,
there are deep concerns about the rapid pace of change, and the attrition
of traditional Qatari culture.
It is erroneous, however, to presume that staunch conservatives of an
older generation are the only obstacle to Qatar’s wholesale Westernization.
Among some young Qataris, there is a burgeoning sense of nationalism,
those who resent Qatar’s reliance on foreign labor and believe the country
Introduction | 11
is being overrun by foreigners. Shunnareh, a twenty-four-year-old Qatari

woman, tells me, “Being Qatari, sometimes I feel like I am a minority in a
way.” There are persistent concerns about Western influence, even among
those who embrace it. A Qatari woman named Rana says,
There’s a lot of Western influence, and a lot of Qataris aren’t happy about
that. It’s not who we are. It’s irritating and confusing to us. Why are
all these Western ideas, ideologies, arts, culture—why are they affecting
us now? Let’s take clothes as an example. Girls my age, we look to Western
fashion trends to know how to dress.40 We’re dressing like Westerners. In
weddings, going out, when we’re traveling, we wear clothes of the West.
Language—my English is way better than my Arabic, and I know a lot of
kids that speak to their parents in English and not in Arabic. Once we lose
our mother’s tongue, what is left? No Arabic language—the Arabic culture
just dissolves; it disappears.
“Our society is being opened,” a Qatari man named Abdullah adds.

“A lot of things are happening. Education is increasing; people are being
more aware. But sometimes it’s too fast. You don’t know when to stop:
‘Am I going too far?’ So we need to be aware of where the limits should
be. I don’t want it to be too open, too liberal, to the extent that people
forget their past.”41
To assuage such concerns, the Qatari leadership vows that modern-
ization will only occur alongside cultural preservation. In 2008, Qatar
National Vision 2030, a comprehensive national development plan, was
launched, designed to transform Qatar “into an advanced country by
2030, capable of sustaining its own development and providing for a
high standard of living for all of its people for generations to come.”
Balancing the twin forces of tradition and modernity was the 2030 plan’s
top priority: “Qatar’s very rapid economic and population growth have
created intense strains between the old and new in almost every aspect
of life. Modern work patterns and pressures of competitiveness some-
times clash with traditional relationships based on trust and personal
ties, and create strains for family life. Moreover, the greater freedoms
and wider choices that accompany economic and social progress pose a
challenge to deep-rooted social values highly cherished by society. Yet it
is possible to combine modern life with values and culture.”42
12 | Introduction
Many Qataris believe that the government is keeping its promise,

pointing to large and small public projects around Doha that integrate
allegedly authentic Qatari traditions. “I don’t think it’s losing its cul-
ture,” a Qatari man named Kadar says. “You see new buildings—on the
outside, it looks traditional, but on the inside, it’s modern.” Shunnareh
agrees: “They’re following the 2030 vision. Part of the vision is to keep
up with their identity and culture. Along with the development, they’re
still preserving the culture and tradition.”
Other Qataris, however, are concerned about the erosion of tra-
ditions under Qatar’s quest for international standing. Eisa, a Qatari
woman, predicts, “There’s gonna be a lot more skyscrapers. They’ll
try to infuse Qatari identity into those, like we’re seeing in some of
those under construction. Economically, it might be better in the world
sphere and the global playing field. Locally, there will be a lot of identity
loss, like what happened in Dubai. The local community will just wither
away.”
Many Qataris advocate for a path that combines the most desirable
aspects of tradition and modernity. “People think that being modern is
taking the Westernized culture, and I don’t think that’s appropriate,” says
Nahir, a Qatari woman. “You want to take the mentality, you want to
take science, these things. You don’t necessarily have to take the culture.
Because at the end, this is what we have that Westerners don’t.” Nahir’s
selection and rejection of various facets of the West exemplifies what I
call modern traditionalism.
Modern traditionalism is a flexible narrative framework where cus-
tomary and contemporary are strategically merged.43 The narrative
simultaneously preserves conventional attitudes and behaviors while
embracing present-day beliefs and actions, and it allows seemingly dis-

parate social phenomena to coexist. Promoted by the state and echoed
by inhabitants, modern traditionalism is found everywhere in Qatar,
embedded into a myriad of cultural “texts,” from its architecture and
sightseeing brochures to its clothing and marital practices.
Modern traditionalism is central to Qatar’s brand, part of what Xavier
Ginesta and Jordi de San Eugenio dub an “international image projec-
tion strategy” and Mehran Kamrava calls “the state leaders’ carefully
crafted vision.”44 Modern traditionalism is employed in service of a
sweeping effort to remake Qatari society.
Introduction | 13
Cynics assert that the government’s efforts prioritize an economic

agenda, rather than a social one. “They’re trying to attract tourists,” a
Qatari woman named Mira says of her government’s nation-branding
attempts. “They’re trying to get us some kind of symbols or well-known
artifacts to legitimize how prestigious or how cutting-edge we are so that
it can attract people. ‘We have world-class education; we have world-
class museums.’ ”
The Qataris’ ambivalence illustrates the challenges of hyper develop-
ment in the globalizing Gulf. This book examines how Qatar’s inhab-
itants are coming to terms with its rapid ascent under the context of
modern traditionalism. To do so, I explore sociocultural realms such
as sports and clothing practices, where modern traditionalism is fore-
grounded, and realms such as marriage, where modern traditionalism
is implicit rather than overt. In these and other endeavors, the nation’s
inhabitants reimagine conventional practices as cutting-edge and recon-
figure traditional culture as modern. Through discourse, embodiment,
and action, people play an agentic role in constructing, communicat-
ing, affirming, reconfiguring, and sometimes resisting the government’s
narrative.
Petrofamilies
In Doha, the ability to deploy modern traditionalism for personal gain
is an elite activity undertaken by a small group of privileged individu-
als. In this book, I focus on the Qataris and non-Qataris who make up
this exclusive body. The influx of hydrocarbon revenues into Qatar has
transformed its surface appearance but also altered some of its most
significant institutions. This includes families, which have undergone

profound change in the oil age. During the Gulf ’s Bedouin period, fam-
ily units tended to be large, due in part to their tribal structure and to
harsh desert conditions that encouraged collectives. Extended families
lived together in clusters of tents, usually formed in circles or squares
that surrounded a central gathering area.
Most of these desert-dwelling families abandoned the desert half
a century ago. In the contemporary Gulf, families reside in futuristic
petrocities, where tribal influence has waned and the odds of survival
have vastly improved. The declining need for extended families has
14 | Introduction
resulted in shrinking household sizes that have become more similar

to a nuclear model.45
During three years of immersive research, 130 people were inter-
viewed for this book. The majority of those interviewed are members
of Qatari or Arabian Gulf familial units whose younger constituents are
the direct beneficiaries of hydrocarbon revenues. These are the young
people for whom Qatar’s 2030 development plan was created. They are
tasked with developing a knowledge-based workforce in Qatar and car-
rying the nation into the postoil era. Because of the changing size of
these families, their direct connection to hydrocarbon wealth, and their
significance to the state’s economic and social agendas, I refer to them
as petrofamilies.
Petrofamilies are the direct beneficiaries of hydrocarbon wealth from
oil-rich Gulf nations. Petrofamily members were born between 1971 and
2015, as wealthy Gulf nations developed modern infrastructures and in-
stitutions to serve them, particularly new systems of education. Petro-
families are not necessarily citizens of the countries in which they reside.
Petrofamilies share traits with nuclear and extended kinship models, but
the idiosyncratic configuration of these characteristics results in a dis-
tinct familial type.
Petrofamilies in Qatar are smaller than families in previous genera-
tions and also smaller than nonpetrofamilies. Petrofamily households
consist of parents, children, and one to twelve domestic workers who
reside in the same dwelling.46 In Qatar, this arrangement is not en-
tirely removed from the era when slaves lived in their Qatari masters’
homes or from the nation’s impoverished preoil years, when household
labor was performed by extended family members. While “a complex
of interrelated changes in ‘Western’ countries has led to the gradual

disappearance of resident servants from all except the wealthiest
households, . . . in ‘less advanced’ countries, but also in some with a
high immigration, being served is still taken for granted in the eyes of
well-to-do families.”47 In petrofamilies, the extended family continues
to weigh heavily, even though all members do not live under the same
roof. Thus, in petrofamilies, kinship ties are retained.
Members of petrofamilies tend to marry later than others. In petro-
families, marriages that take place between citizens and noncitizens
are overrepresented.48 Rates of consanguinity are relatively low among
Introduction | 15
petrofamilies.49 Petrofamily wives may choose to work outside the home

or not work at all. Petrofamilies have fewer children than nonpetrofami-
lies and begin having them about five years later.
Members of petrofamilies attend private, international primary and
secondary schools. Petrofamily members earn postsecondary, graduate,
and professional degrees at established Western institutions of higher
education. They work as creative-class professionals in fields such as en-
gineering, law, education, technology, the arts, and human resources.
Petrofamilies are globally oriented and residentially mobile. Their
members travel regularly and spend long periods of time living abroad.
“Full-time, Doha; part-time, everywhere,” an Omani expatriate explains.
“I’ll go for a year, or I’ll go for a couple months.” Due to this geographic
fluidity, petrofamilies are less likely to own homes. Instead, they take
extended stays in flexible households that double as mobile engines of
consumption.
Petrofamilies are cosmopolitan in outlook and liberal compared to
other Arab households in Qatar.50 They tend to be Muslim, with levels
of religiosity that range across the spectrum. Muslim women in petro-
families may or may not wear traditional Islamic clothing.
Not every household in Qatar contains a petrofamily. Highly con-
servative parents do not travel abroad or allow their children to at-
tend college. Other families isolate themselves in suburban areas or the
smaller towns outside the capital city. With regard to size, outlook, and
behavior, Qatar’s rural families tend to resemble traditional extended
families. Conversely, there are many families residing in Doha that are
not the direct recipients of petroleum wealth and thus do not fit the
label.
Letta is part of a petrofamily, but her aunt is not. Letta’s mother and
aunt fight constantly about the direction Qatar is taking. Although the
sisters grew up in the same household, their varying educational and
occupational experiences as adults has produced distinctly divergent
worldviews. Letta explains, “My mom finished her full education. She
graduated from university and worked as an administrator. She traveled.
She was an ambassador’s wife—she went with him around the world. My
aunt, she left high school. She stayed here. She got married and had nine
children. She’s conservative. She traveled, but traveling doesn’t mean
you’re seeing the world.”
16 | Introduction
The Qatari government supports petrofamilies because they repre-

sent a path to continual development. Petrofamilies—contemporary
and global in their outlook yet rooted in traditional family values—
exemplify the narrative of modern traditionalism. For the nation to em-
brace globalized modernity, buy-in from families is essential. Because
petrofamilies reaffirm the significance of family as an institution, they
provide Qatar with a strategy to move forward without appearing to
have taken a step.
The Book’s Organization

Chapter 1 serves as an introduction to Qatar and foreshadows the book’s
primary themes. Set at a stand-up comedy performance, the scene pro-
vides a microcosm of Qatar’s transnational milieu. Reflecting Qatar’s
conservative environment, most of the comedians are careful about
what they say onstage. Qatar does not guarantee freedom of speech,
and its government once sentenced a poet to life in prison for penning
a few lines that it deemed offensive. The comedians develop strategic
workarounds to subtly, and not so subtly, address controversial topics
such as nationalism and citizens’ rights. There are also Qatari comedi-
ans whose status as nationals grants them considerable leeway onstage,
illustrating the different worlds occupied by citizens and noncitizens
in Doha.
Contemporary Qatar cannot be understood without appreciating its
relationship to the Arabian Gulf. Chapter 2 examines Qatar’s develop-
ment in the context of the Gulf, the site of enormous human activity,
trade, and commerce from ancient times until today. In this brief his-
tory, I consider how tribes influenced social and political systems in the
Gulf, including the Al Thanis, the dynastic tribal family that has ruled
Qatar for more than 150 years. For eons, the Gulf has been a key trade
and shipping route, connecting Mesopotamia to the Indian subconti-
nent; during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the region be-
came known for its pearling and fishing industries. The contemporary
Gulf is characterized by modern petrocities whose enormous wealth
services their nation-building aspirations. Doha vies directly with Dubai
to see which metropolis can outdo the other, be it through sports, educa-
tion, skyscrapers, shopping malls, mosques, or broken world records. To
Introduction | 17
compete, Qatar brands itself using a narrative of modern traditionalism,

drawing from an array of classic and contemporary traits. I explore the
contours of modern traditionalism, unpacking its multiple meanings
and characteristics, including generic but esteemed concepts such as
freedom, authenticity, family values, and women’s empowerment. I also
reveal how the government deliberately deemphasizes tribes and Islam
in the narrative in order to curtail preexisting tribal power and replace
it with a bureaucratic government structured to grant supremacy to the
Al Thani dynasty. To conclude, I explain the reasons behind the narra-
tive’s universality—and success.
Mega sporting events, including the 2022 FIFA World Cup, align
perfectly with Qatar’s economic agenda, which uses athletics as part
of its nation-building ambitions. In chapter 3, I explore sports culture
in Doha, where low-wage migrant workers are bused to soccer stadi-
ums for televised games, so that it appears that the stands are filled with
ardent fans, and where Kenyan runners are granted temporary Qatari
citizenship in order to compete as nationals. The government has spent
a fortune to erect state-of-the-art facilities, to host international sport-
ing events, and to send athletes to compete globally. Sports are also a
primary platform for modern traditionalism’s motif of female empow-
erment. Despite these efforts, however, rates of women’s athletic partici-
pation remain in the single digits. Interviews with players, coaches, and
spectators reveal the social processes underlying these cultural practices.
Finally, chapter 3 demonstrates how sportswomen overcome barriers to
athletic participation by engaging with modern traditionalism, align-
ing their sports-related activities with empowerment, Islam, and family
values.
Chapter 4 examines the embodiment of modern traditionalism via

clothing. In the day-to-day lives of Qataris, virtually all wear the na-
tional uniform: white thobes and ghoutras for men and black abayas
and shaylas for women. These signifiers of nationality are “passports”
in a nation where citizens are positioned atop the social hierarchy. Ex-
ploring these issues vis-à-vis the hijab, I trace the garments’ history in
the Gulf, including its transformation from functional to fashionable
attire. In contemporary Doha, many young Qataris sport abayas that
are chic and form-fitting. These and other changes generate persistent
grumbles—and social control measures—from other Qataris. In these
18 | Introduction
and other interactions, the hijab serves as a site of resistance, conformity,

and negotiation of social issues, including responses to modernity and
Westernization. To assuage concerns about cultural erosion and main-
tain a sense of personal style, Qatari women modify, adjust, reimagine,
and remove their hijabs to suit changing circumstances. These hijab
micropractices—the strategic and situational use of traditional Muslim
clothing—are at times so infinitesimal that they are easy to overlook. Yet
they are significant because they enable women to align the elements
of modern traditionalism into a socially acceptable national identity
that maximizes autonomy. The hijab is typically viewed through a lens
of constraint, but here I demonstrate its flexibility and the agency with
which Muslim women engage in adornment practices. Hijab microprac-
tices, however, may inadvertently uphold a dynastic power structure
that does little to advance women.
Chapter 5 considers the impact of sweeping socioeconomic trans-
formation on dating, sex, and marriage. Public interactions between
men and women, including married couples, are heavily restricted in
Qatar, where it is against the law for two people to date until they have
signed a marriage contract. This does not stop young adults from hook-
ing up surreptitiously or gay and lesbian culture, which is illegal but as
prevalent in Doha as anywhere else. The prohibitions related to dating
contribute to high rates of marriage between first and second cousins,
pairings that are typically prearranged by families. The persistence of
consanguinity in Qatar is partly explained by the historical connections
between families and tribes in the Gulf. During the Bedouin era, wed-
dings were modest events that reflected the dire circumstances of that
time; today, these events are Disneyfied fairy tales, with families com-
peting to throw the “wedding of the year.” These cultural practices are
shaped by changing expectations about marriage and the ubiquity of
Western popular culture that venerates romantic love. Drawing on ele-
ments of modern traditionalism, Qataris utilize an array of rhetorical
and behavioral strategies that situate arranged, inner-family marriages
as in step with contemporary ideals about matrimony.
Chapter 6 examines foreign labor in Qatar from opposing ends of
the employment spectrum. On one side are professional-class expatri-
ates with terminal degrees from prestigious Western universities; on
the other are low-wage migrants who toil six days per week in Qatar’s
Introduction | 19
service and construction sectors. These groups are physically segregated

from each other, and a number of institutional and cultural mechanisms
symbolically insulate Qataris from expatriates. This stratification is il-
lustrated through everything from residential zoning laws and hiring
practices to homes and clothing. Both sets of workers are part of Qatar’s
sponsorship labor system, which gives them limited protections from
deportation should trouble arise. Professional-class expatriates develop
interactive strategies to attempt physical or symbolic affinity with Qa-
taris, seeking whatever residual benefits such proximity has to offer.
Low-wage laborers from non-Western nations have fewer options. On
their one day off per week, these laborers are prohibited from entering
shopping malls, among the few free, public, air-conditioned spaces in a
country where temperatures regularly exceed one hundred degrees. The
negligent treatment of low-wage migrant workers contributed to a tragic
incident at a Doha shopping mall, discussed in chapter 6, that lays bare
the disconnect between Qatari nationals and expatriates.
To conclude, I explore the limits of modern traditionalism, how it
enriches certain populations to the detriment of others. Because mod-
ern traditionalism fortifies national identity, it may inadvertently sustain
some of the social conditions it was designed to alleviate. Furthermore,
while classic modernization theory asserts that Qatar is becoming more
Western under rapid development, Western countries are increasingly
resembling nations like Qatar.
In an appendix to the book, I provide an account of my research
methods.

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Copyright © 2020. New York University Press. All rights reserved.

NEW YORK UNIVERSIT Y PRESS

50°E YEMEN 55°E

ISBN 9781479854820 (paperback) | ISBN 9781479809547 (ebook) |

2. Modern Traditionalism: Qatar and the Arabian Gulf 56

3. Inventing Traditions: The Construction of Sports Culture 93

4. The National Uniform: Strategic Uses of Clothing 124

5. Venus and Mahrs: Dating, Sex, and Marriage 158

6. Expats and Workers: Foreign Labor under Sponsorship 190

Conclusion: The Limits of Modern Traditionalism 225

Appendix: Researching Qatar 245

About the Author 329

“Today, many governments and international powers act with impunity,

accused the Muslim Brotherhood, and other Qatar-backed groups such

Doha, Qatar. (Photo by Alexander R. Wilcox Cheek)

lit up in Qatar’s national colors, maroon and white.7

From Oil to Knowledge

Qatar Foundation for Education, Science, and Community Devel-

infrastructural projects that raised the nation’s global stature: providing

Sand and Desolation

employed thousands. Labeling the country in dismissive terms that

from around the world.”22 This sentiment is shared by a journalist from

Stacy Dragila decried Qatar’s hosting of a championship track and field

In Qatar, as elsewhere, social life is organized around gender, with

leaders. The emir is powerful but is also required to rule in accordance

is being overrun by foreigners. Shunnareh, a twenty-four-year-old Qatari

“Our society is being opened,” a Qatari man named Abdullah adds.

Many Qataris believe that the government is keeping its promise,

embracing present-day beliefs and actions, and it allows seemingly dis-

Cynics assert that the government’s efforts prioritize an economic

significant institutions. This includes families, which have undergone

resulted in shrinking household sizes that have become more similar

of interrelated changes in ‘Western’ countries has led to the gradual

petrofamilies.49 Petrofamily wives may choose to work outside the home

The Qatari government supports petrofamilies because they repre-

The Book’s Organization

compete, Qatar brands itself using a narrative of modern traditionalism,

Chapter 4 examines the embodiment of modern traditionalism via

and other interactions, the hijab serves as a site of resistance, conformity,

service and construction sectors. These groups are physically segregated

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