Zahra R. Babar

Visiting Toronto Metropolitan University

Fall 2026

Research focus while a Global Migration Institute Scholar

While at GMI, Zahra will continue to work on ongoing projects she is leading on migrant voices and experiences in Qatar, and explore how oral histories, digital storytelling, and other forms of public-facing research can complement and extend conventional academic scholarship. Babar's fellowship will build on her research on migration, labor, citizenship, and mobility in the Gulf, with particular attention to the racialized hierarchies that shape migrant labor and the ways states govern and differentiate migrant populations. She is interested in how the Gulf can help us rethink some of the categories and assumptions that have shaped the study of migration, including distinctions between “liberal” and “illiberal” migration regimes and conventional understandings of temporariness, citizenship, and belonging. Her work approaches the Gulf not as an exceptional case, but as an important site for generating new questions and perspectives on migration, labor, and citizenship.

The fellowship will provide an opportunity to deepen these conversations through sustained engagement with scholars and students at GMI and across TMU, as well as through collaborative research, workshops, and public-facing initiatives.

Career Achievements

Zahra R. Babar is an academic leader and researcher whose work focuses on migration, labour, citizenship, and mobility in the Persian Gulf. Based at Georgetown University in Qatar since 2008, she currently serves as Executive Director of the Center for International and Regional Studies, where she leads interdisciplinary research on the Gulf, the Middle East, and neighbouring regions. She has developed collaborative research initiatives, convened international scholars and practitioners, and mentored students and early career researchers. Babar has published more than 40 scholarly articles and book chapters and edited several major works on migration and citizenship in the Gulf. She has also developed public facing projects documenting migrant experiences in Qatar. Before joining Georgetown, she worked in the humanitarian aid and development sector, including with the International Labour Organization and the United Nations Development Programme, experience that continues to inform her interest in connecting research with policy and practice.

Relevant Publications

Babar, Z. R. (2026). Empowering migrants: The role of Sandigan and grassroots organizing in advancing migrant rights in the Gulf. In J. N. Slater (Ed.), Routledge handbook on civil society in the Middle East and North Africa, (pp.201-215).

Babar, Z. R. (2026). Female domestic workers in the Persian Gulf. In S. Irudaya Rajan & D. Balan (Eds.), Gender and migration in the Arabian Gulf, (pp. 53–69). Springer.

Babar, Z. R., & Khan, M. (2026). The paradox of technical education and the Pakistani migrant in the Gulf. In K. V. Walther et al. (Eds.), The gospel of work and money: Industrial education and its global legacies (pp. 254–284). University of Pennsylvania Press.

Babar, Z. (2025). The buying of freedom: Migrant workers and the “Azad” visa in the Persian Gulf. International Migration, 63.

Babar, Z., Walther, K., Kahle, T., Mirgani, S., Bhatti, M., Sbaiti, N., & Aboueldahab, N. (2025). Digitizing the experiences of migrant labour in Qatar. Labour History: A Journal of Labour and Social History, 129, 169–187.

Babar, Z., & Vora, N. (2022). The 2022 World Cup and migrants’ rights in Qatar: Racialised labour hierarchies and the influence of racial capitalism. The Political Quarterly. 93(3), 498–507.

Babar, Z. (2021). Purveyors of dreams: Labour recruiters in the Pakistan to Saudi Arabia migration corridor. Migration and Development, 10(1), 68–85.

Babar, Z. (2020). The vagaries of the in-between: Labor citizenship in the Persian Gulf. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 52, 765–770.

Babar, Z., Ewers, M., & Khattab, N. (2019). Im/mobile highly skilled migrants in Qatar. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 45(9), 1553–1570

Babar, Z. (2017). The “enemy within”: Citizenship-stripping in the post-Arab Spring GCC. The Middle East Journal, 71(4), 525–543.

Babar, Z. (2014). The cost of belonging: Citizenship construction in the State of Qatar. The Middle East Journal, 68(3), 403–420.