Two students sit at a small table next to a bright window cut in half by a thin string of red, green, and blue lights.
Outside is Asian Town, an enclave built for migrant workers in Qatar, the country with the highest per capita income in the world and where about 90% of the population is temporary. Inside, across the table, one of these foreign workers shares his experiences as a labor migrant over lunch.
The interaction is one of a handful of mealtime interviews arranged for students while visiting Qatar as part of this spring’s Migration and the Global City course, taught by Professors Andrew Gardner, sociology and anthropology, and Robin Jacobson, politics and government. Offered as a Connections course—part of Puget Sound’s core curriculum that aims to help students develop their understanding of how different disciplines, methodologies, and subject matter relate—the class investigated the intersections of politics, culture, history, economics, education, and society.
“I don’t want to sit in a classroom and tell [students] what they need to understand and what’s important,” Andrew says. “I want to take them and stick them in front of migrants and have them explore the city to see the segregation and enclaving and all the other urban processes that divide and organize foreigners in Qatar. I want them to see and experience that themselves.”
In addition to the two international trips (Qatar organized by Andrew, and Amsterdam planned by Robin), the course involved readings, lectures, discussions, guest speakers, and excursions around Tacoma and Seattle. But getting out of the country was key.
Qatar is my home away from home. Being the exploratory tour guide for these students actually brought it alive again for me."
– Andrew Gardner
“We thought we could go to two different cities with students and compare how migrants fit in the contemporary city and in the history of these cities, and thereby give students some empirical basis for comparison,” Andrew says. “Part of our interest in that endeavor was to really nudge students’ focus out of the U.S.” He believes that seeing how others—and other communities, cities, and countries—are working through these issues in their own ways can teach us. “We can learn from difference,” he says. “So we wanted to carry students to some of these different places in the world and have them explore these very same kinds of frictions through others’ experience.”
The value of others’ experiences was seen within the class, as well. About a third of the students in the course found it through Robin or the politics and government department, and another third through some connection with Andrew or a sociology and anthropology class. “And then there’s that wonderful other third,” Andrew says, “which was a fascinating amalgamation of students, including some from the sciences and one from communications. They brought real, valuable, intellectual contributions to the class, in part because of their different backgrounds and interests.”
For Andrew, the course was rewarding on a personal level, in addition to an academic one. “Anthropologists are solitary creatures,” he says. “We fly off to distant places alone and meander around in foreign cultures until we’re relatively welcome and at home. Then we write about it. But to bring 17 students and a colleague with me into the place that I’ve been studying and returning to three or four times a year for a decade now… I was a little anxious about that. But it ended up being fantastic. Qatar is my home away from home, and being the exploratory tour guide for these students actually brought it alive again for me.”
Scroll through our photo gallery to see some of Andrew's photos from Qatar.
Students bumped into Andrew's good friend and renowned Qatari sociologist Ali Alshawi, who taught with Andrew at Qatar University, in a coffee shop.
Iraqi-born urban planner Yaseen Raad talks with students about urban planning and revitalization projects in the neighborhood where they were staying.
The first night: Prof. Robin Jacobson (center, at the head of the table) and Prof. Andrew Gardner (right), with the class at Souk Waqif. Souk Waqif was built 10 to 15 years ago and is what Andrew calls a "simulacrum," a reconstruction of what we imagine a typical Middle Eastern market and bazaar would be like.
Mounted police at Souk Waqif
A performance of traditional Qatari songs at Souk Waqif. The market offers a mix of touristy performances and authentic community experiences.
The class often split into small groups to go "urban drifting," a way to "put yourself out in the city and find your way to the unexpected," Andrew says.
During one urban drift, Andrew and students encountered South Asian migrants fishing on the Corniche, with West Bay, Doha, in the background.
Across the bay from the Corniche, students and Robin (second from right) tried to navigate the West Bay, which Andrew calls "enslaved to the automobile" and definitely not pedestrian friendly.
Here, the class and Robin (second from right) enter Msheireb, a new, sustainable urban development in the center of the city.
During construction of Msheireb, four structures on the site were designated historical houses and converted into museums showcasing traditional Qatari home life, the history of slavery in the region, the arrival of the oil industry, and more.
At the Msheireb historical museum showing Qatari home life, Robin (right) and the class were joined by Moza Al Thani (not pictured), one of Andrew's former students at Qatar University, who shared her own experiences as a Qatari woman.
In Education City, an area where all the American (and several non-American) university satellite campuses are located, students toured the Northwestern University campus and facilities.
While in Education City, Puget Sound students joined local students for a joint class with Jocelyn Sage Mitchell, assistant professor in residence at Northwestern University in Qatar.
Nepalese migrants Sam and Rakesh, friends of Andrew's for more than a decade, arranged for students to meet, interview, and get to know some South Asian labor migrants over lunch in Asian Town.
Rakesh also participated in the interviews—and the selfies.
Asian Town is a community of approximately 60,000 transnational migrants. Walking through the main shopping center—typically a male-dominated space—helped students experience firsthand the otherness that migrants often feel.
For a different perspective on otherness, the class visited with Andrew's research colleague Zahra Babar. As academics, the two are considered part of the expatriate upper middle class while working in Qatar, and are housed in compounds of about 80 dwellings, often surrounding a pool—and surrounded by a wall. "A space of privilege, certainly," Andrew says, "but also an enclave."
The class in Qatar.
