In a city that treats them as temporary, South Asian migrants transform overlooked spaces into places of belonging, agency and community.
Muscat is a city of pristine highways, landscaped boulevards and rapid development. Look closer, however, and another city emerges: migrant workers resting beneath palm trees, taking photographs at roundabouts and playing cricket on undeveloped land. For South Asian migrants who are welcomed only temporarily, these overlooked spaces become places of leisure, belonging and agency. Aysha Farooq explores how migrants navigate a car-oriented city, transform neglected spaces and create community amid structural inequalities. Their stories reveal not only the constraints of temporary migration, but the creativity, adaptability and resilience with which people make a life in a city that was never designed around their needs.
Aysha Farooq
Aysha Farooq (Dr.-Ing.) is an urban planner and researcher whose work focuses on migration, urban space, mobility, and the everyday experiences of migrant communities. She explores how migration shapes cities and how migrant communities navigate, appropriate, and transform urban spaces. She holds a BSc in urban planning and architectural design from the German University of Technology in Muscat, an MSc in urban planning from Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) Aachen, and a doctorate in engineering from Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) Aachen, completed with distinction.
Space Migration Muscat Temporariness Human Geography Urban Studies