Javier Guirado

I am a Lecturer of World History at Kennesaw State University, in Atlanta. In my research, I study how energy extraction, labor, and social movements have shaped space in the Arabian Peninsula from the first oil rigs to present-day solar plants. In this sense, my work sits at the intersection of social history, critical urban geography, and science and technology studies (STS).

I earned my PhD from Georgia State University in 2024, where I explored the role of labor in the transformation of social and urban geographies in Qatar since oil began to be drilled in the late 1940s. I have also been a Visiting Doctoral Fellow at the Orient-Institut Beirut (OIB), a Guest Researcher at the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (NVIC), and have collaborated with Project SEPAD (Lancaster University) since 2021.

For my project with Mapping Connections, I will examine green developments in Oman to explore how China’s global leadership in renewables is shaping energy transition in the Gulf. In particular, I will focus on how solar plants in the country’s interior are redefining local and regional geographies as key pieces of Omani development policies but also as part of China’s global economic architecture.