Digitizing the Experiences of Migrant Labour in Qatar

This article focuses on the multidisciplinary methodological approaches that undergird the Digitizing Experiences of Migrant Labor in Qatar research project. This project is building a publicly accessible digital archive of oral histories, the first of its kind in the Arabian Peninsula, allowing migrants to narrate their own experiences in their own voices and expanding our understanding of migration in the region. By leveraging digital tools, the project aims to democratise knowledge production and extend access beyond academic audiences to migrant communities themselves, prospective migrants, and their families. The authors of this article, who come from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, discuss the methodological and ethical dimensions of creating and disseminating a digital oral history archive. What does it mean to centre the voices of migrants in a space where they have historically been marginalised? How do we balance the imperative of access with concerns about privacy, security, and potential risks of voice identification? What are the limits of anonymisation in an era where digital traces are increasingly difficult to erase? We argue that the act of listening to migrants in their own voices holds an ethical and political power that is lost in conventional text-based formats.