Staging globalization for national projects: Global sport markets and elite athletic transnational labour in Qatar

The global migration of elite athletes is a key feature of the transnational labour market. Following a background discussion and review of the literature on sport and transnationalism, this article explores this phenomenon in the context of Qatar. Beginning with the emergence, meaning and movement of the elite athlete transnational labour force that constitutes global sport markets, the article explores how states call upon global sport markets in service to national projects. This is followed by a focused examination of the development of the global sport industry in Qatar. By looking at globalization in Qatar, we are able to see culturally relative characteristics of globalization that are not made visible in the predominantly Western-focused sport scholarship. Transnational sport in Qatar exemplifies the operating mechanisms of global networks. Finally, the article concludes with a discussion of transnational labour and the role played by elite sport in the contested terrain between localism and nationalism.