Positionality in an Ethnically Diverse Qatar

This article examines how positionality and various researcher–respondent combinations enhance our ability to gain holistic representations of the ethnically diverse Qatari society. While there has been a substantial growth in the use of qualitative research methods in the Arab World since the 1990s, methodological analyses of this qualitative shift remain scarce. Our two years of extensive research on the National Museum of Qatar involving 135 semi-structured interviews and six focus groups conducted by a diverse research team with a diverse population enabled us to identify practical guidance on the employment of qualitative research methods in Qatar, and by extension to the socially, culturally, and politically similar wider Arab Gulf region.