Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS

Responding to pandemic-inspired changes to research collaboration and dissemination methods, this year CIRS reorganized and significantly expanded its scope.

Adding to existing research on the Gulf and the Middle East, the center launched two timely thematic areas of study: Environmental Studies, and Race and Society. These new themes support faculty whose research addresses important knowledge gaps around establishing a just and sustainable future.

Annual Report 2020-2021 •

Georgetown University in Qatar

RACE AND SOCIETY

Examining race, ethnicity, religion, and cultural and national identity and belonging in multiple global contexts and geographies, including the Middle East, CIRS supports original research production on diverse topics such as citizenship, migration, labor and employment, the family, education, technology and communication, as well as arts and cultural production.

REGIONAL STUDIES

Research in Regional Studies considers the Middle East and Gulf region’s quickly changing geopolitics, as well as historical, social, economic, and cultural developments in the region.

ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

The Environmental Studies cluster addresses important questions related to the political economy of natural resources and issues of ecological concern such as desertification, water, and climate change.

VISIT THE CIRS WEBSITE

Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS)

Race and Society

ECONOMIC MIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES RESEARCH PROJECT

This research covers the fluidity of migration categories, skilled migration, and the changing spectrum of U.S. immigration policy, migrants and employment in the U.S., the H-1B visa program, international student mobility and migration, and gender and migration in the U.S. Outcomes included a virtual working group on the topic.

“THE GOSPEL OF WORK AND MONEY: GLOBAL HISTORIES OF INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION”

Led by Karine Walther and Oliver Charbonneau, University of Glasgow, this research explores industrial education via various disciplinary lenses, with the aim of developing an edited volume on the topic addressing geographic and thematic gaps. In the first working group meeting, 14 scholars presented their preliminary chapter abstracts, while subsequent meetings discussed each chapter in depth.

This project explores the role of industrial education in maintaining and enforcing economic and racial hierarchies around the world, shedding light on the construction of current inequalities and the lasting impact of historical injustice on the economy today.

Regional Studies

FIFA WORLD CUP QATAR 2022 LECTURE SERIES

Four lectures gathered World Cup experts, including sociologists, journalists, and bestselling authors, to speak about the upcoming FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. Lectures included:

“The 2022 World Cup in Qatar in Historical Perspective” by David Goldblatt, sociologist, journalist, and bestselling author.

Matthias Krug

Building a Legacy: Qatar FIFA World Cup 2022

Under the guidance of Visiting Associate Professor Danyel Reiche, the project examines the implications of staging the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 on the social, political, and economic development of Qatar as well as on regional and global affairs. The project does this through lectures with experts, blogs, and podcasts, leading to a publication on the topic.

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Annual Report 2020-2021 •

Georgetown University in Qatar “Qatar’s Football Journey: From First Games on Sand to Hosting the World as Asian Champions” by Matthias Krug, author and journalist.

“The Away Game: Qatar’s Search for Football’s Next Superstars” by Sebastian Abbot, former Associated Press reporter and author.

“The FIFA World Cup: Football, Citizenship, and National Identity 1930–2022” by Gijsbert Oonk, Director of the Sport and Nation research program at Erasmus University Rotterdam. The research we are doing at CIRS on Qatar’s role as host will be beneficial for future work on the intersection of global sporting events and society, for example as related to the FIFA 2026 World Cup in the Americas.

— Danyel Reiche

WORLD CUP BLOGS

Through this blog series, CIRS invites scholars and experts to write about some of the important issues around the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. Topics cover stadium construction, team national identity, sports and regional geopolitics, women’s football, the pandemic, migrant labor, calls for a boycott, and the end of the blockade.

WORLD CUP PODCASTS

Podcasts with experts provide insights into various aspects of staging the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. Moderated by Danyel Reiche, these informal conversations touch upon different impacts of the World Cup on the social, cultural, and political fabric of Qatari society.

SEE FULL LIST IN APPENDIX III The Arab Uprisings: Ten Years On

CIRS worked with a consortium of universities on a year-long series of events focused on the legacy of the Arab uprisings, which aims to produce resources for educators, researchers, students, and journalists to understand the last decade of political upheaval historically and in the present. Abdullah Al-Arian gave a talk on “Islamists and the Arab Uprisings” at Stanford University as part of these events.

The project is organized by the Arab Studies Institute, Princeton’s Arab Barometer, and George Mason’s Middle East and Islamic Studies Project. GU-Q’s participation in the project is guided by an oversight group of faculty, researchers, and Dean Ahmad Dallal.

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Annual Report 2020-2021 •

Georgetown University in Qatar

Environmental Studies

“A NEW POLITICAL STRATEGY TO LIMIT CLIMATE CHANGE”

This moderated discussion with Anatol Lieven proposed new a political strategy that involves convincing states and citizens that climate change poses an immediate threat to their survival.

WATCH THE DISCUSSION

While international movements are valuable, in the end their purpose is to get states to act because, as the pandemic response demonstrated, only states can take measures and mobilize the resources required. For this to happen, states have to be convinced that climate change is not just a threat to humanity in general, but a danger to the vital interests and the long term survival of their own nations.

—Anatol Lieven

“EVERYDAY ENERGY: APPROACHES TO LIVED EXPERIENCE”

Moderated by GU-Q faculty project leads Firat Oruc, Trish Kahle, and Victoria Googasian, this Energy Humanities research initiative launch event explored a variety of research approaches to the study of energy and humanities. The discussion also featured expert panelists Dominic Boyer, Rice University; Sara B. Pritchard, Cornell University; and Jennifer Wenzel, Columbia University.

WATCH THE TALK

“THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON AGRICULTURE IN SOUTH ASIA”

This panel discussion moderated by Anatol Lieven identified research gaps in the field and featured economist Vaibhav Chaturvedi, Fellow from the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, and N.H. Ravindranath from the Center for Sustainable Technologies at the Indian Institute of Science.

WATCH THE DISCUSSION

“GAME-BASED LEARNING AND CLIMATE CHANGE IN QATAR”

Moderated by Dean Ahmad Dallal and Sonia Alonso, this collaborative project with researchers from ten institutions including relevant stakeholders in Qatar aims to explore and demonstrate the effectiveness of game-based learning solutions to nurture the type of environmental commitment and collaborative civic engagement required to move Qatari society closer to climate neutrality.

The COVID Project

This research initiative focuses on how a subset of Middle Eastern countries—Iraq and the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) monarchies—were affected by and are responding to the ongoing global health crisis.

The unprecedented impact of the current crisis will require a multidisciplinary approach to the complex issues that will continue to emerge over time. And by leveraging our in-house expertise as well as GU-Q’s network of regional and international scholars, we hope to draw attention to the issues that will become increasingly important in the coming period.

—Mehran Kamrava

Scholars and experts were invited to take part in interviews and panel discussions, and to write online briefs about the pandemic’s impact on Europe’s asylum system, employment in the GCC, and the application of climate change theory. Experts also discussed whether labor migrants are being neglected in COVID-19 measures and containment in the U.S.

Energy Humanities Project

This web-based research project aims to provide scholarly insight on some of the key issues related to the field of energy humanities through moderated podcasts and webinars with global and regional scholars and experts. The project webpage also provides resources to aid research and teaching on topics related to energy humanities.

Scholarly approaches to energy have often been concerned with issues of state security, political stability, and global economic relations that arise out of the production and consumption of energy. Our goal for this project is to use our position as humanities scholars to add another layer of nuance and texture to that study of energy by bringing the scale of everyday life of individuals and communities into focus.

—Victoria Googasian