ABSTRACT
This chapter interrogates how Afghan and Pakistani migrants in Qatar interpret and manage their sporting and social trajectories. The focus is on the pathways in which migrant athletes leverage sport in the Middle East to negotiate visibility, forge solidarities, and navigate layered forms of marginalization. Drawing on frameworks of social reproduction, hegemonic masculinity, and inclusive masculinity, it examines the intersection of masculine norms with cultural and religious identities, as well as the role of sport participation in both integration and the maintenance of transnational ties. This chapter centers athletes’ narrated experiences to recalibrate scholarly attention from macro-level spectacle, such as the 2022 FIFA Men’s World Cup, toward the micro-processes of adaptation, identity, and intercultural encounter that underpin Qatar’s evolving sporting landscape. In doing so, it contributes to the growing discourse on migration in the Arab world. The chapter concludes by highlighting the need for policy frameworks that recognize migrant athletes not solely as labor inputs or sometimes as symbolic resources but as agents who shape pluralistic sporting cultures.
