Motorbiking in Qatar

I chose to study the motor biking subculture in depth for this assignment. The reason that they are defined as a subculture is that they share the same values and interests. My interest in this subculture had grown since I had more time to look into this subculture and focus on other elements such as interviewing the motorbike riders. The places that I interviewed the motorbike riders were limited because most of them gathered in the same place. I interviewed a couple in Katara, and one by West Bay. Took photographs of the motorbikes and the motorbike riders themselves. I interviewed four motorbike riders. However, I had to have my brother with me the whole time because as a female in this society, people can look at me negatively. This addresses the gender issue in Doha, how a woman is perceived in this society. A woman cannot simply approach motorbike riders alone, they might think she is making advances at them, which they consider as “flirting” and that is considered to be unacceptable for a woman to do. It was a great experience for me because I got to see the two point of views of the people towards motorbiking. The younger generation and the older generation had completely opposite thoughts on motorbikes. Mostly the older generation saw it as being deviant and the younger generation thought it was kind of “cool.”

motorbikeslast from Sara Al-Darwish on Vimeo.