Hi all,

Although we remain mostly locked down by the pandemic, a variety of scholarly and academic organizations are hosting virtual conferences this academic year. I’m happy to announce that my photo exhibit — Proletarian Enclaves in the Urban Landscape of Doha, Qatar — was accepted by The Nature of Cities (TNOC) 2021 Festival, and is showing there all this week!

This particular set of images has an interesting backstory. The images included in this exhibit are part of a larger collection that I put together early this summer, thanks to the generous offer of Kevin McGlocklin, the owner of Tacoma’s Bluebeard Coffee Roasters and Cafe. Culling a thematic set of images from my time and work in Qatar, I was able to carry some of the elements from the Bluebeard show to the TNOC exhibit. Here’s the short blurb from the new exhibit, along with several of the included images:

“These images explore the peripheral urban enclaves where much of the foreign workforce dwells in Doha, Qatar. These transnational migrants, most of whom come from South Asia, both build and service the modern city. Although a few stragglers still dwell in the urban core of Doha, most migrant workers now occupy enclaves constructed at the periphery of the city. In the lifeworlds of these men and women, these migrations are, for most, an economic necessity for the households behind them. But these migrations also serve as a right of passage, and comprise a great and difficult adventure that is sometimes rewarding. The cities they inhabit upon arrival, like the one portrayed here, are far from home for millions of migrant men and women who dwell there, and is simultaneously the setting for this social drama.”

Special thanks to Dharmendra and Deependra for their help with several of the sojourns from which these photographs come.

Andrew