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Short abstract:

This paper traces how Human Rights organizations sought to concretize the systematic heat harms suffered by migrant workers in the run up to the Qatar World Cup, thereby revealing not just the contingency but also the maltreatment produced by the Qatari government's thermal regime

Long abstract:

Since the announcement that Qatar would host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, tens of thousands of migrant workers were hired to construct the massive amount of necessary infrastructure - including stadiums, transportation, and cultural landmarks. However, Qatar quickly came under fire from multiple Human Rights Organisations (HROs) for its long-standing abusive labour practices. While the criticism of practices such as the Kafala system are relatively well-known, this talk argues that considerations of heat played an important role in this intervention.

To publicize the phenomenon of unexplained worker deaths and chronic diseases, HROs deployed worker testimony, statistical analysis, and legal arguments to make institutionally perceptible these workers and how their deaths were being rendered invisible by the Qatari political and medical apparatus. Despite being faced with constant counter-manoeuvres by government actors, World Cup officials, and contractors, the persistence of HROs moved the needle from denial to limited acknowledgement of the issue.

However, the eventual Qatari response was not to accept full responsibility and make whole the affected workers, but the circulation of updated technocratic solutions such as new body suits and standards. Thus, the myth of thermal objectivity was shattered, but this simply opened up a new terrain of negotiation where powerful actors still possessed formidable resources to shape future thermal regimes.