Development vs. Gentrification: Competing Narratives of Msheireb Doha

Abstract

This paper critically engages with discourses of development in the Persian Gulf by focusing on the narratives surrounding Msheireb, comparing state-sponsored histories and the accounts of migrant inhabitants of the city center. Msheireb is an interesting case study as both a historic neighborhood in the heart of Doha, and as a bustling, contemporary metropolitan area in Qatar. It is in this duality that the competing narratives around Msheireb surface, producing a picturesque, modern neighborhood ripe with cafes and luxury retail brands in high-rise buildings, while the outskirts embody the run-down and historic Msheireb populated by low-rise buildings that house workers’ accommodation, and small migrant-run establishments such as garages, grocery stores, and tea shops. While Downtown Msheireb gains popularity as a modern and exciting neighborhood, historic Msheireb has endured rapid gentrification since the 2010s, displacing communities of low-income migrant workers that have inhabited the neighborhood since the 1970s. We demonstrate that state-sponsored narratives of Msheireb overlook the presence and the contributions of migrant workers in the country; they position Msheireb as a Qatari neighborhood dilapidated by temporary migrant inhabitance, now being rejuvenated by the Msheireb Downtown Doha project. Migrant inhabitants recall inhabiting Msheireb as a lively and accessible residential and commercial neighborhood between the 1970s and 2010s, that they are now alienated from. This paper probes such competing narratives of inhabitance of the neighborhood, the complex identities and positionalities of those who inhabit it, and the politics, power relations, gender dynamics, and hegemonic discourses that (de)legitimize migrants’ lived experiences.

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