Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Ever since Qatar has been announced as the host of the 2022 Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup, a number of concerns were raised regarding Qatar’s suitability. Some of these concerns included: forced labor, bribery allegations, non-recognition of Israel, extreme climate, and alcohol ban. The conditions of the low-income migrant workers is, thus, a pressing problem to Qatar. Little work has been done on the intersection of state, space and labor in Qatar. I focus on the dialectical dynamics between the state role in producing social categories (and structural context) at the macro-level, and the conditions of the low-wage migrant workers at the micro-level. In examining the production and reproduction of spatial difference, I intend to explore the effects of residential segregation on the distributive targeting to some marginalized groups in Qatar. The spatial segregation is formalized through the 2011 Family Zone House policy also known as the ‘prohibition of the workers camp concentrations within family residential areas’ policy. Such policy bans the gatherings of the low-incomes migrant workers’ housing within ‘family’-designated areas. Focusing on the 2011 family house zone policy, how can we examine the effects of spatial segregation on labor conditions? I am interested in deploying this spatial sorting to evaluate “whether benefits and repression are disproportionately located in areas that represent the greatest threat of sabotage" (Johnston 2015). I argue that migrant workers living in mixed communities receive better resources than those living in isolated communities. The state and non-state actors (i.e. firms) provide targeted benefits to the low-wage workers, who live in proximity to the locals, to prevent the threat of sabotage.