Category: research

image of small boat in blue ocean seen from above

Practicalities of Moving to the Arabian Peninsula: Navigating Public Spaces

I am happy to announce that my 4th book, Researching and Working on the Arabian Peninsula: Creating Effective Interactions, will be available in June – https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-96-5326-3. 

This book outlines strategies for current or soon-to-be business professionals, government employees, researchers and teachers to communicate, study and work effectively on the Arabian Peninsula. Using first-person accounts, as well as scholarly research from the fields of history, anthropology, political science, travel writing and literature, this book gives clear advice for expats wanting to create successful interactions with people from Arabian Peninsula societies. By discussing how the practicalities of work and research intersect with cultural norms, this book fills the gap between tourist guides aimed at the causal tourists and academic texts on narrowly defined topics.

Navigating Public Spaces – walking

People who come from cultures in which it’s normal and easy to go by foot and/ or public transportation for shopping, work and recreation might have to adjust their expectations. Some mixed-use developments, like the Pearl in Qatar and City Walk in Dubai, are set up for ease of movement, but they are the exception.

Maneval mentions that “streets in contemporary neighbourhoods in Jeddah have been designed for cars and not for pedestrians…Except for a few streets in the old town and its adjacent neighbourhoods, there are no pavements” (2019 180). The same holds true in most towns on the Arabian Peninsula. Home-owners will often pave the section between the house wall and the street to use as a parking space, but there are often no sidewalks. To walk from one house to another, you will constantly move between different types of paving stones, gravel, parked cars, dumpsters and rocky open land.

Sometimes the house takes up all of the land and the house wall is so close to the street that the owner must park in the street. While this isn’t legal, it’s also not complained about and no one would suggest tearing down the house wall to get the cars out of the streets, so although all residential areas are designed with two-way streets, practically-speaking many have only the center of the street open for driving.

The mosque is seen as the center of the neighborhood; men walk to it for the 5 daily prayers if they are in the house at prayer time. This walking is the only time I have seen men walk within neighborhoods. Women do not often go to the mosque, but some will walk around the neighborhood with children as exercise. 

The area around a mosque is usually paved with flag stones where men stand and talk before and after prayers. During Ramadan, this space can be used for iftar, the sunset meal to break the fast, with dates, pastries, fruit with water, juice and/ or butter milk (laban), etc. given free. The space is also used to collect goods during charity drives. 

Many mosques share a side wall with a shop. There might be only one small grocery store or a few shops including a bakery, vegetable store and/ or dry-cleaners. Men can stop and pick up necessities for the house on the way back from prayers and children are sent to get last-minute items for meal preparation or to buy sweets. Many neighborhood mosques have small playgrounds near them.

In commercial areas, there is also usually little walking. While a row of shops with aligned storefronts may have a short, common sidewalk, walking between stores means navigating many different types of paving materials, open spaces and parked cars, with the additional hazard of dripping air conditioners.

Many expats live in high-rise apartment buildings which have small shops on the first floor, e.g. dry clearer, coffee shop, small grocery store, fruit and vegetable store, shoe repair, etc. There is endless duplication so that if your building does not have a shop you need, a nearby building probably will. The clerks in the store can bring whatever is needed up to an apartment and an apartment dweller can pick up whatever is needed on the way to or from work.

Walking for fun is usually done in public spaces set up by municipal governments for recreational purposes, such outdoor shopping malls, walking paths, picnic areas and beaches. As one researcher told me, “You drive to walk.” Meaning, you often need to get into your car to get to a place where it’s fun and comfortable to walk.

Since land is bought and sold in parcels which are developed at different times, you can often find a luxury property next to empty lot which might be used as a garbage tip. There is seldom the cheek and jowl, seamless, block after block of retail stores that you can find in European downtowns. You might park in scrubland then walk in the street to get to your office building or live in an enclave that is surrounded by sandy waste.

No matter what you are wearing, if you are walking in public, you are going to be stared at which can be frightening if you come from a culture in which eye contact from strangers is a sign of danger. Some people love this attention, some hate it – but there is no way to stop it. Dressing immodestly may cause more staring, but dressing conservatively does not prevent it. Wearing sunglasses, walking with someone and not looking at other people can help you minimize the discomfort and there is rarely any overt behavior (such as being followed or called out to), but you are going to be observed and judged at every public appearance. 

Navigating Public Spaces – gender issues

If you come from a culture which does not have a focus on keeping space between men and women in public, there might be some adjustments as you get used to the Arabian Peninsula. There are three basic ways to keep a male/ female separation in public: 1) laws/ government regulations, 2) how the buildings are planned, i.e., built-in elements and 3) people’s individual choices.

For example, some commercial and public spaces have laws such as women-only restaurants or women-only days at a shopping festival or park or women-only wards in a hospital.

Depending on where you are, you might see specific written instructions such as “family area” or “women and families only on Tuesdays.” Some restaurants have the family area upstairs with the entry through a different door. Sometimes the family section is a group of small closed rooms or it is divided from the open section by a low wall.        

Some locations don’t have laws or built-in barriers, but people walk and sit in ways to create gender divisions in places such as the gate area in airports and on beaches. Several years ago my bank started an initiative to have a “women’s only” teller complete with a long, narrow, pink carpet for women to stand on while waiting. Before this, women wearing black abayahs would often cut to the front of the line or stand in line, then men would gesture for them to go to the front. Women who were not conservatively dressed would wait in line but there would be a little extra empty space ahead of and behind them.

The “women’s only line” initiative fizzled out fairly soon (I never saw a woman in the women’s teller space, although there are female tellers) and was eventually replaced with a ticket system in which each person would take a numbered ticket when they arrived and wait for the number to be called. The chairs in the waiting area are not marked in any way, but are always divided by the people waiting with women in one section and men in another.

Similarly, in Oman hospitals and clinics often have ‘women-only’ and ‘men-only’ waiting rooms but you can find people sitting and looking in ways to create privacy for others. For example, a man who is with his mother might sit in the ‘women-only area,’ but stay next to the door. Several times when men in my research group have been sick, I have visited them, sometimes staying for hours in areas marked ‘men-only.’ And I know that sons, brothers, husbands and fathers walk into ‘women-only’ wards to visit female relatives.

In general, both men and women can define their wish to apart by using location and clothing. For example, one woman might choose to sit in the open section of a restaurant, while another pulls the back of the sheila over her face to cover her eyes as she walks to the woman-only section.

And just as there are signals that you want privacy, there are signals that you don’t want privacy, i.e., “look at me” behavior – talking loudly, gesticulating, wearing a lot of perfume and clothes to accentuate shape, this includes men wearing brightly colored and/ or very tight fitting dishdashes.

Sometimes the signal is: “look at me being virtuous,” i.e., preforming conservative beliefs in public in a way that attracts attention so that you know you will to be under observation. For example, in an airplane, some Dhofari women make a very public controversy about refusing to sit next a man; this can be done very loudly with raised voices, blocking the aisle, refusing to sit where asked, arguing with a stewardess, etc.[1]

How privacy works in public areas is not simply the physical set-up, distance or clothing, locals also use deliberate systems of noticing and not noticing to grant a kind of seclusion to others. For example, sometimes Omanis purposefully don’t “see” people who share their space. This can be a way of showing respect; a married man who is walking with his wife in a mall might be ignored by friends who pass him or acknowledge him only with a small gesture such as lifting the eyebrows.

If I am sitting alone in a café, men who know me will often ignore me until either another man from my research groups comes to sit with me or they are leaving the café. What often happens is that they will walk slowly, allowing their friends to go ahead, then come to my table to say hello, while their friends wait outside the door.

A general rule of thumb is that if you are male, learn to make room for conservatively dressed females, even if within your own culture women make way for men. On the walking paths, men need to move to the side to let women pass; on beaches and in picnic areas, if there are women sitting together, it is expected that no man will approach them.

If you are male and accidently bump into a local woman, take up whatever the “I’m sorry” position is in your culture. For many North Americans that means hands up at shoulder-height, slightly away from the body, palms facing the person you touched, while slowly backing up.

If you are female and not dressed like a local, be prepared that some men will refuse to notice your existence, to the point of practically running you over in hallways.

            [1] This can also be done politely and without fanfare. Once, as I stood next to my aisle seat preparing to sit down, the man in the middle seat spoke quietly to his young son at the window, who then switched places with him. The son clearly wanted to be by the window, but the father did not want to sit next to me.

man sleeping on desert floor

Leaving Oman: Grief, Grandeur, Museums and Bringley’s ‘All the Beauty in The World’

(In memory of Steve Cass)

I usually walk to work through a beautiful colonnade of trees but one day four trees had been taken out by municipal workers. Since I had been looking at those trees every day for months, I knew one had a squirrel’s nest. As it was now January and there was no leaf litter on the ground, I knew that squirrel was in trouble. So, the next time I went to the grocery store, I got unsalted peanuts and every morning I would scatter some at the base of the nearest tree.

It took me three weeks to realize that I was tossing peanuts because I identified with that squirrel. I had lived in Oman for 19 years and had to leave with a few months’ notice. By the grace of God, I have my family and friends, but I lost so much, that even with a nice studio apartment and a good temporary job, I feel like that squirrel, suddenly tossed out of a warm, safe space into a bleak January.

When I left Oman, I lost my job and, far more than that, I lost my main career. For 19 years, I taught stories, poetry and dramas to non-literature majors to help them improve their language skills and cultural knowledge. I don’t fit into American universities’ English departments whose students know English and don’t need to learn about North American/ UK/EU cultures. And I don’t have the training or temperament to teach English as a Second Language using language textbooks.

I lost my second career as an anthropologist. Over a decade of study, I taught myself how to do ethnographic research and wrote four books. But I don’t fit in Anthropology departments as I don’t have a related degree and I have never taken an anthropology course.

I also lost stuff: my beloved 2009 pick-up that drove me up mountains, across deserts and along beaches. I lost my hand-painted furniture, my teak chairs, wool rugs, clothes, everything that was in my kitchen and hundreds of books, all given away to friends.

And I lost a lot of who I was. I visit my mom every six weeks or so, but beyond that, I am at home or at work. I used to be social but since I have been back in the States I have been out to lunch once with relatives, had coffee with a friend, dinner with friends and attended one party. Four activities in eight months when I used to have four social activities in a week.

In an effort to get out more, I went to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Walking into the Ancient Egypt section felt like coming home. It was so peaceful and lovely, it seemed as if I was putting down a burden that I hadn’t realized I was carrying.

I wandered around the museum for three hours in a daze, in the words of Emily Dickenson

Inebriate of air – am I –
And Debauchee of Dew –
Reeling – thro’ endless summer days –
From inns of molten Blue –

I liked “Woman and Flowers” by Alma-Tadema, one of my favorite painters, but the painting I loved most was “Rest on the Flight into Egypt” by Luc Olivier Merson, such a quiet, graceful scene.

I bought a membership to the museum and within a month I was back. I paid a visit to the Egyptian section, then ventured further out, into the American and impressionists exhibits. Two weeks later, I spent another morning walking around without a map. It was nice to come across Paul Revere’s silverwork and the painting of flowers exhibit, but the only places I really wanted to be was in front of Merson’s painting or anything Middle Eastern from before 1500 CE.

Walking into a room in the Ancient Egyptian section that I hadn’t seen before, I suddenly understood why the museum brought me such serenity. The cases were full of small, wooden boats full of men in white sarongs. “Oh,” I realized, “they look like the research guys.” Most of the Omani men I did ethnographic research with are full- or part-time fishermen. They wear a wazar, a piece of fabric wrapped around their waists that falls to their knees which is often plain white cotton or white with a light checkered or striped pattern.

And the man in the painting “Rest on the Flight into Egypt” sleeps as the research guys sleep when they are camping, directly on sand next to a fire with a blanket underneath and a blanket over which is pulled up to cover the face. For everyone else, the man in the painting is Joseph; for me, it’s one of 15 different men who I was friends with, went fishing with, had hundreds of picnics with, asked questions of and who I miss terribly.

My grief is much smaller than most people who have been displaced by wars and hatred. Relatives co-signed my lease so I have a place to stay; my mom helps me get through a Boston winter by gifting flannel sheets and sweaters. By the grace of God, I have landed with the kindest group of co-workers. But I stand in front of that painting and cry as it seems to hold all the harmony that I have lost.

And, as so often happens, the book I needed to understand how I felt appeared at the right time. Amidst the postcards and scarves in the museum shop, I saw All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me by Patrick Bringley. Although my favorite museum is the Frick, I also love the Met and the cover mentioned something about grief, so I thought it would be interesting.

I read it in one morning, crying all the way through. What Bringley gets so right is how a loss, even when you know it’s coming and you have a pretty good idea how much it is going to hurt, stops the forward motion of your life. His book isn’t “feel-good” or “how-to”; after his brother died, Bringley walked away from his career and became a security guard at the Met for ten years.

I understand that kind of change. Several acquaintances have been shocked that, after almost two decades as assistant and associate professor, I am working as an administrative assistant. I apply for jobs I am qualified for, such as teacher training, but I am very content doing something less complicated. Rest is good.

And while the book is about grief and the solace of art, Bringley also knows the solace of time passing and how, even you want to cling to a certain kind of numbness, beauty (however you define it) will lead you back to life.

Reading All the Beauty in the World made me realize that I wasn’t only missing my Omani friends, I was missing beauty, the sublime moments of natural splendor that were so common in Oman and totally absent from my life in Boston.

For me, beauty comes straight on, like a ghost walking through you. You feel like you have been passed through a sieve that takes out all your daily, small worries as you stand in front of that gorgeous scenery. That happened constantly when I was in Oman.

I could go to a miles-long beach with clean sand where I could sit or walk without being bothered by another person. I would meet the research guys for dinner in small sandy coves, where you could not see any lights except on boats far out to sea. After dinner, we would sit and talk for hours, looking up at a sky full of stars. Some nights there were meteor showers; in the spring the water had phosphorescence. If we went out on a boat, there were pods of dolphins, whales, sea turtles and all the different types of fish they were catching. I walked down into sinkholes full of birdsong; in the monsoon season I had tea next to waterfalls.

And now I live in Boston which has nice parks and some pretty streets but you can’t see stars. Is there a place in the States that has a miles-long stretch of beach with pristine sand, ocean water that’s clean and warm enough to swim in, where you can camp, build a fire and it’s safe for a woman to sit alone for hours after dark?

I am snug in my tiny apartment but I don’t have grandeur. I don’t have vistas. I don’t have the chance to stand on the edge of a cliff and look down on the lights of a small town by the ocean and look up to the wide sweep of a dark sky full of constellations. When I see “Rest on the Flight into Egypt,” I remember that I have camped in deserts like that. I have driven across deserts during the day chatting away with research guys and driven across deserts at night alone, playing music and watching the stars that came down almost clear to the horizon.  

The problem with tasting a liquor never brewed is that one day, there will be no more such liquor and you will stand in a museum with tears streaming down your face.

I taste a liquor never brewed –
From Tankards scooped in Pearl –
Not all the Frankfort Berries
Yield such an Alcohol!

Inebriate of air – am I –
And Debauchee of Dew –
Reeling – thro’ endless summer days –
From inns of molten Blue –

When “Landlords” turn the drunken Bee
Out of the Foxglove’s door –
When Butterflies – renounce their “drams” –
I shall but drink the more!

Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats –
And Saints – to windows run –
To see the little Tippler
Leaning against the – Sun!

Rest on the Flight into Egypt, Luc Olivier Merson,

Returning to USA – Culture Shock essays

 

Culture Shock – Returning to USA

Culture Shock: The Basics

Culture Shock: (Not) Being Under Observation

Culture Shock: The Parable of the Boxes

Culture Shock: The Land of Detachment and Toolboxes

Culture Shock: Bumpy Reentry and Moral Dilemmas

Culture Shock – Communication is Always the Worst Part, part 1

Culture Shock – Communication is Always the Worst Part (Don’t Lie), part 2

Culture Shock – Drugs, Medicines, Choices and Chances

Cultural Preferences for Gathering Information – Talk to a Person or Type into your Phone?

Navigating without Language

Teaching: Reflections on Culture Shocks

 

Bibliography – Creating Effective Interactions: Researching, Teaching and Working on the Arabian Peninsula (forthcoming, Palgrave MacMillan)

Creating Effective Interactions – Dr. M Risse – working biobibliography 

(authors in bold have additional publications which are not included in this list)

Abdul-Jabbar, Wisam. 2024. “Towards a ‘Study at Home’ Education in the Arab Gulf Region: Reterritorializing the ‘Study Abroad’ Mode.” Journal of Gulf Studies 1.1: 21-39.

Abu-Lughod, Lila. 2016/1986. Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.

—. 2016. “The Cross-publics of Ethnography: The Case of ‘the Muslimwoman’.” American Ethnologist 43.4: 595-608.

—. 2013. Do Muslim Women Need Saving? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

—. 2011. “Seductions of the Honor Crime.” Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 22.1: 17-63.

—. 2008. Writing Women’s Worlds: Bedouin Stories. Berkeley: University of CA Press.

—. 1991. “Writing Against Culture,” in Recapturing Anthropology. Richard Fox, ed. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press. 137-62.

—. 1990. “Anthropology’s Orient: The Boundaries of Theory in the Arab World,” in Theory, Politics and the Arab World: Critical Responses. Hisham Sharabi, ed. New York: Routledge. 81-131.

 —. 1989. “Zones of Theory in the Anthropology of the Arab World.” Annual Review of Anthropology 18: 267-306.

—. 1985. “A Community of Secrets: The Separate World of Bedouin Women.” Signs: A Journal of Women in Culture and Society 10: 637-57.

—. 1985. “Honor and Sentiments of Loss in a Bedouin Society.” American Ethnologist 12: 245-61.

Adra, Najwa. 2011. “Tribal Mediations in Yemen and its Implications to Development.” AAS Working Papers in Social Anthropology 19. Vienna: Institut für Sozialanthropologie. 1-17.

Adra, Najwa, Marieke Brandt, Steven Caton, Paul Dresch and Andre Gingrich, eds. 2021. Tribes in Modern Yemen: An Anthology (Denkschriften Der Philosophisch-historischen Klasse 531). Vienna: Institut für Sozialanthropologie der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.

Ahmed, Qanta. 2008.  In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor’s Journey in the Saudi Kingdom. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks.

Al-Amadi, Dana, Mark David Major, Heba Tannous and Amina AlKandari. 2023. “Diving for the Spatio-functional Qualities of Exclusivity at The Pearl-Qatar.” Habitat International 138. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0197397523001169?via%3Dihub

Al Farsi, Sulaiman. 2013. Democracy and Youth in the Middle East: Islam, Tribalism and the Rentier State in Oman. New York: I.B. Tauris.

Al-Ghanim, Kaltham, Andrew Gardner and Noora Lari. 2023. “Contemporary Women in Qatar: An Ethnographic Study of Their Challenges in Terms of Traditional Applications and Modern Requirements.” Sage Open. 1-17. DOI: 10.1177/21582440231196030

Al-Hajri, Hilal. 2006. “British travelers in Oman from 1627-1970.” Modern Oman: Studies in Politics, Economy, Environment and Culture of the Sultanate. Andrzej Kapiszewski, Abdulrahman al Salimi and Andrej Pikulski, eds. Krakow: Ksiegarnia Akademicka. 63-88.

Al-Hikmani, Hadi and Andrew Spalton. 2021. Dhofar: Monsoon Mountains to Sand Seas – Sultanate of Oman. Chicago: Gilgamesh Publishing.

Al Hussein, Mira. 2022, Nov. 10. “UAE: National Identity and the Social Contract.” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. https://carnegieendowment.org/sada/88371

—. 2021, Dec. 30. “The Economic Contracts of New Gulf Citizenships.” Orient XXI. https://orientxxi.info/magazine/the-economic-contracts-of-new-gulf-citizenships,5265.

—. 2021, Oct. “Citizenship in the Gulf.” Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Policy Report 40. https://www.kas.de/en/web/rpg/detail/-/content/citizenship-in-the-gulf

—.2021, Sept. 15. “The UAE’s ‘Foreign Talent’ Dilemma.” London School of Economics Blog. blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2021/09/15/the-uaes-foreign-talent-dilemma

Al Ismaili, Ahmed. 2018. “Ethnic, Linguistic, and Religious Pluralism in Oman: The Link with Political Stability.” Al Muntaqa 1.3: 58-73.

Al Maazmi, Ahmed. 2021. “The Apocalyptic Hijab: Emirati Mediations of Pious Fashion and Conflict Talk.” Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World 19: 5–27.

Al Mutawa, Rana. 2024. Everyday Life in the Spectacular City: Making Home in Dubai. Berkely: University of California Press.

—. 2022. “‘We’re Not Like the Newbies’: Belonging Among Dubai’s Long-term Residents.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2022.2142105

—. 2022. “Navigating the Cosmopolitan City: Emirati Women and Ambivalent Forms of Belonging in Dubai,” in Migration in the Making of the Gulf Space Social, Political, and Cultural Dimensions. Antia Mato Bouzas and Lorenzo Casini, eds. New York: Berghahn Books. 67-85.

—. 2020, Dec. 9. “Dishdasha Blues: Navigating Multiple Lived Experiences in the Gulf.” London School of Economics Middle East Blog Posts https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2020/12/09/dishdasha-blues-navigating-multiple-lived-experiences-in-the-gulf/

—. 2019, Nov 8. “Dubai Mall or Souq Naif? The Quest for ‘Authenticity’ and Social Distinction.” London School of Economics Middle East Blog Posts. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2019/11/08/dubai-mall-or-souq-naif-the-quest-for-authenticity-and-social-distinction/

—. 2019, April 30. “You Can’t Sit with Us: Prejudice and ‘Othering’ between Khaleejis.” Sekka. https://sekkamag.com/2019/04/30/you-cant-sit-with-us-the-othering-within-arab-gulf-societies/

—. 2019. “The Mall Isn’t Authentic!: Dubai’s Creative Class And The Construction of Social Distinction.” Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural Systems and World Economic Development 48: 1-2: 183-223.

—. 2018, Dec.4. “Challenging Concepts of ‘Authenticity’: Dubai and Urban Spaces in the Gulf.” London School of Economics Middle East Blog Posts. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2018/12/04/challenging-concepts-of-authenticity-dubai-and-urban-spaces-in-the-gulf/

—. 2017. “Women and Restrictive Campus Environments: A Comparative Analysis Between Public Universities and International Branch Campuses in the UAE.” Higher Education in the Gulf States: Present and Future. 17-9.

Al-Nowaihi, Magda. 2001. “Resisting Silence in Arab Women’s Autobiographies.” International Journal of Middle East Studies. 33.4: 477-502.

Al-Qasimi, Noor. 2012. “The ‘Boyah’ and the ‘Baby Lady’: Queer Mediations,” in Wawa Series. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 8.3. Fatima Al Qadiri and Khalid Al Gharaballi, eds. 139-42.

—. 2010. “Immodest Modesty: Accommodating Dissent and the ’Abayah-as-Fashion in the Arab Gulf States.” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 6.1: 46-74.

Al-Rasheed, Madawi. 2013. A Most Masculine State: Gender, Politics, and Religion in Saudi Arabia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

—. 2013, Apr. 22. “Theorizing the Arabian Peninsula Roundtable: Knowledge in the Time of Oil.” Jadaliyya. https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/28472/Theorizing-the-Arabian-Peninsula-Roundtable-Knowledge-In-the-Time-of-Oil

Al Salimi, Abdulrahman. 2018. Oman, Ibadism and Modernity (Studies on Ibadism and Oman). Hildesheim, Germany: Georg Olms Verlag.

Alsharekh, Alanoud, ed. 2007. The Gulf Family: Kinship Policies and Modernity. London: Saqi Books.

Altorki, Soraya, ed. 2015. A Companion to the Anthropology of the Middle East. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.

—. 1988. “At Home in the Field,” in Arab Women in the Field: Studying Your Own Society.  Soraya Altorki and Camillia El-Solh, eds. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. 49-68.

—. 1986. Women in Saudi Arabia: Ideology and Behavior among the Elite. New York: Columbia University Press.

—. 1982. “The Anthropologist in the Field: A Case of “Indigenous Anthropology” from Saudi Arabia,” in Indigenous Anthropology in Non-Western Countries. H. Fahim, ed. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press. 167-75.

—. 1980. “Milk-kinship in Arab Society.” Ethnology 19: 233-44.

Altorki, Soraya and Camillia El-Solh, eds. 1988. Arab Women in the Field: Studying Your Own Society. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.

Ali-Karamali, Sumbul. The Muslim Next Door: The Qur’an, the Media, and That Veil Thing. Ashland, OR: White Cloud Press, 2008.

Ammann, Ludwig. 2002. “Islam in Public Space.” Public Culture 14.1: 277-79.

Anderson, Esther. 2021. “Positionality, Privilege, and Possibility: The Ethnographer ‘at Home’ as an Uncomfortable Insider.” Anthropology and Humanism 46.2: 212-25.

Antrosio, Jason. 2018. “Starbucks Enlightenment: Is Anthropology Better than Starbucks?” Living Anthropologically. https://www.livinganthropologically.com/starbucks-enlightenment/. First posted 28 April 2018. Revised 3 June 2020.

Appadurai, Arjun. 1986. “Theory in Anthropology: Center and Periphery.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 28.2: 356-61.

Arciniega, Luzilda Carrillo. 2018, May 24. “Starbucks, Racism, and the Anthropological Imagination.” Anthropology News. https://www.luzilda-arciniega.com/public-scholarship/project-two-kzr4a

Arebi, Saddeka. 1994. Women and Words in Saudi Arabia. New York, Columbia University Press.

Armstrong, Karen. 1994. A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. New York: Ballantine Books.

Asad, Talal. 1986. “The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam.” Occasional Papers Series, Center for Contemporary Arab. Georgetown University.

Aslan, Reza. 2011/2006. No God but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam. New York: Random House.

Asmi, Rehenuma. 2016. “Finding a Place to Sit How Qatari Women Combine Cultural and Kinship Capital in the Home Majlis.” Anthropology of the Middle East 11.2: 18-38.

Assaf, Laure. 2020. “‘Abu Dhabi is my Sweet Home’: Arab Youths, Interstitial Spaces and the Building of a Cosmopolitan Locality.” City 24.5-6. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2020.1837562.

—. 2018. “Who is the Right One? The Meanings of (Marital) Love in the United Arab Emirates,” in Reinventing Love? Gender, Intimacy and Romance in the Arab World. C. Fortier, A. Kreil and I. Maffi, eds. Berne: Peter Lang.

Augustin, Anne-Linda. 2018. “Rumours, Fears and Solidarity in Fieldwork in Times of Political Turmoil on the Verge of War in Southern Yemen.” Contemporary Social Science 13.3-4: 444-56.

Baer, Brian James. 2020. “From Cultural Translation to Untranslatability – من الترجمة الثقافية إلى استحالة الترجمة: Theorizing Translation outside Translation Studies.” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 40: 139-63.

Ball, Lawrence, Douglas MacMillan, Joseph Tzanopoulos, Andrew Spalton, Hadi Al Hikmani and Mark Moritz. 2020. “Contemporary Pastoralism in the Dhofar Mountains of Oman.” Human Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-020-00153-5

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Vogler-Fiesser, Gisela and Musallem Hassan Al Mahri. 2023. Dhofar’s Nomads How Oman’s Renaissance Changed a Way of Life Forever. Online publisher: Nomad Publishing.

Volpp, Leti. 2011.“Framing Cultural Difference: Immigrant Women and the Discourses of Tradition.” differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 22.1: 90-110.

—. 2001.“Feminism versus Multiculturalism.” Columbia Law Review 101.5: 1181-1218.

—. 2000. “Blaming Culture for Bad Behavior.” Yale Journal of Law and Humanities 12: 91-116.

vom Bruck, Gabriele. 2018. Mirrored Loss: A Yemeni Woman’s Life Story. New York: Hurst.

—. 2017. “Bodies on the Move: Gender Dynamics on a Sanaani Minibus,” in Architectural Heritage of Yemen: Buildings that Fill my Eye. Trevor Marchand, ed. London: Gingko Library. 187-93.

—. 2005. “The Imagined ‘Consumer Democracy’ and Elite Re-Production in Yemen.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 11.2: 255-75.

—. 1997. “A House Turned Inside Out: Inhabiting Space in a Yemeni City.” Journal of Material Culture 2.2: 139-72.

Vora, Neha. 2018. Teach for Arabia: American Universities, Liberalism, and Transnational Qatar. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.

—. 2013. Impossible Citizens: Dubai’s Indian Diaspora. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

—. 2013, Apr. 22. “Theorizing the Arabian Peninsula Roundtable: Unpacking Knowledge Production and Consumption.” Jadaliyya. https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/28473/Theorizing-the-Arabian-Peninsula-Roundtable-Unpacking-Knowledge-Production-and-Consumption

Watson, Janet and Abdullah Musallam Al-Mahri. 2023. “Developing Resources for Modern South Arabian Languages,” in Communicating Linguistics: Language, Community and Public Engagement. Hazel Price and Dan McIntyre, eds. New York: Routledge. 168-79.

Watson, Janet, Jon Lovett and Roberta Morano, eds. 2023. Language and Ecology in Southern and Eastern Arabia. London: Bloomsbury.

Watson, Janet, Miranda J. Morris, Abdullah al-Mahri, Munira al-Azraqi, Saeed al-Mahri and Ali al-Mahri. 2019. “Modern South Arabian: Conducting Fieldwork in Dhofar, Mahrah and Eastern Saudi Arabia.” Arabic Dialectology 11. https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:210624878}

Weir, Shelagh. 2007. A Tribal Order: Politics and Law in the Mountains of Yemen. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Weiss, Nerina, Erella Grassiani and Linda Green, eds. 2023. The Entanglements of Ethnographic Fieldwork in a Violent World. London: Routledge.

Wikan, Unni. 1982. Behind the Veil in Arabia: Women in Oman. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Wilkinson, J.C. 2013. Water and Tribal Settlement in South-East Arabia (Studies on Ibadism and Oman) New York: Georg Olms Verlag.

—. 2010. Ibâḍism: Origins and Early Development in Oman. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

—. 1987. The Imamate Tradition of Oman. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

—. 1983. “Traditional Concepts of Territory in South Arabia.” Geographical Journal 149.3: 301-15.

—. 1971. “The Oman Question: The Background to the Political Geography of South-East Arabia.” The Geographical Journal 137.3: 361-71.

Willis, John. 2013, Apr. 22. “Theorizing the Arabian Peninsula Roundtable: Writing Histories of the Arabian Peninsula or How to Narrate the Past of a (Non)Place.” Jadaliyya. https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/28485/Theorizing-the-Arabian-Peninsula-Roundtable-Writing-Histories-of-the-Arabian-Peninsula-or-How-to-Narrate-the-Past-of-a-NonPlace

Wilson, Alice. 2023. Afterlives of Revolution: Everyday Counterhistories in Southern Oman. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

—. 2016. “Oman’s Consultative Council Elections: Shaking up Tribal Hierarchies in Dhufar.” Middle East Report 281: 41-3.

Wilson, G. Willow. 2012. Alif the Unseen. New York: Grove Press.

—. 2011. Butterfly Mosque. New York: Grove Press.

Wippel, Steffen, ed. 2023. Branding the Middle East: Communication Strategies and Image Building from Qom to Casablanca Studies on Modern Orient, 38. Berlin: de Gruyter.

—. 2013. Regionalizing Oman: Political, Economic and Social Dynamics United Nations University Series on Regionalism 6. Heidelberg: Springer.

Wippel, Steffen, Katrin Bromber and Birgit Krawietz. 2016. Under Construction: Logics of Urbanism in the Gulf Region. London: Routledge.

Yadav, Stacey Philbrick. 2018. “Ethnography Is an Option. Learning to Learn in Yemen,” in Political Science Research in the Middle East and North Africa: Methodological and Ethical Challenges. Janine A. Clark and Francesco Cavatorta, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 165–74.

Yamani, Mai Ahmed Zaki. 1986. “Birth and Behaviour in a Hospital in Saudi Arabia.” Bulletin (British Society for Middle Eastern Studies) 13.2: 169-76.

Yateem, Abdullah. 2001. “Aspects of Social and Symbolic Boundaries Amongst the Bedouin of the Emirates.” Journal of the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Studies 103: 49-87.

Zimmerle, William. 2017. Crafting Cuboid Incense Burners in the Land of Frankincense: The Dhofar Ethnoarchaeology Preservation Project. Washington: Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center/Liberty House Press.

Marielle Risse

Books

Houseways in Southern Oman. Routledge, 2023

This book explains how modern, middle-class houses are sited, designed, built, decorated and lived in with an emphasis on how room-usage is determined by age, gender, time of day and the presence of guests. Combing ethnography and architectural studies, the author draws on over sixteen years of living in the Dhofar region to analyze the cultural perceptions regarding houses and how residential areas fit within the urban areas in southern Oman. Dhofari houses are also compared to houses in other Arabian Peninsula countries and positioned within the theoretical frameworks of the “Islamic city” and the “Islamic house.”

Foodways in Southern Oman. Routledge, 2021

This book examines the objects, practices and beliefs relating to producing, obtaining, cooking, eating and disposing of food in the Dhofar region of southern Oman. The chapters consider food preparation, who makes what kind of food, and how and when meals are eaten. Foodways connects what is consumed to themes such as land usage, gender, age, purity, privacy and generosity. It also discusses how foodways are related to issues of morality, safety, religion, and tourism. The volume is a result of fourteen years of collecting data and insights in Dhofar, covering topics such as catching fish, herding camels, growing fruits, designing kitchens, cooking meals and setting leftovers out for animals.

Community and Autonomy in Southern Oman. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019

This book explores how, in cultures which prize conformity, there is latitude for people who choose not to conform either for a short time and how the chances to assert independence change over time. The main focus is on how the traits of self-control and self-respect are manifested in the everyday actions of several groups of tribes whose first language is Gibali (Jebbali/ Jebali, also referred to as Shari/ Shahri), a non-written, Modern South Arabian language. Although no work can express the totality of a culture, this text describes how Gibalis are constantly shifting between preserving autonomy and signaling membership in family, tribal and national communities.

Publications – scholarly articles and chapters – anthropology/ culture/ travel writing

“Lifeways of Traditional Fishermen in Dhofar, Oman,” in Fish as Food: Lifestyle and a Sustainable Future. Helen Macbeth, ed. International Commission on the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition – Alimenta Populorum series. 2024: 155-170. https://archive.org/details/macbeth-young-and-roberts-ed-fish-as-food-anthropological-and-cross-disciplinary

“An Ethnographic Discussion of Fairy Tales from Southern Oman,” Fabula: Zeitschrift für Erzählforschung / Journal of Folktale Studies / Revue d’Etudes sur le Conte Populaire 60.3-4 (De Gruyter, Berlin) 2019: 318–335.

 “Understanding Communication in Southern Oman,” North Dakota Quarterly 84.1 (Special Issue on Transnationalism) 2017: 174-184.

“Generosity, Gift-giving and Gift-avoiding in Southern Oman,” Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 45 (Oxford: Archeopress) 2015: 289-296. 

“Understanding the Impact of Culture on the TESOL Classroom: An Outsider’s Perspective,” TESOL Arabia’s Perspective 18.2, 2011: 15-19.

“Cultural Refraction: Using Travel Writing, Anthropology and Fiction to Understand the Culture of Southern Arabia,” Interdisciplinary Humanities 26:1, 2009: 63-78.

Publications – scholarly articles and chapters – literature/ pedagogy

“Using Cultural Understandings to Improve Teaching in Oman,” in Unpackaging Theory and Practice in Educational Sciences. Abdülkadir Kabadayı, ed. Lyon: Livre de Lyon. 2023: 129-141.  https://www.livredelyon.com/educational-sciences/unpackaging-theory-practice-in-educational-sciences_595.

“Teaching Paired Middle Eastern and Western Literary Texts,” in Advancing English Language Education. Wafa Zoghbor and Thomaï Alexiou, eds. Dubai: Zayed University Press, 2020: 221-223.

“Teaching Literature on the Arabian Peninsula,” Anthropology News website, October 7 2019. http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2019/10/07/teaching-literature-on-the-arabian-peninsula/

“Selecting the Right Literary Texts for Middle Eastern Students: Challenges and Reactions,” in Focusing on EFL Reading: Theory and Practice. Rahma Al-Mahrooqi, ed. Muscat: Sultan Qaboos University Press, 2014: 165-188.

 “Frosty Cliffs, Frosty Aunt and Sandy Beaches: Teaching Aurora Leigh in Oman,” Ariel: A Review of International English Literature 43.4, 2013: 123-145.

“Who Are You Calling ‘Coddled’?: ‘Cloistered Virtue’ and Choosing Literary Texts in a Middle Eastern University,” Pedagogy 13.3, 2013: 415-427.

“Do You know a Creon?: Making Literature Relevant in an Omani University,” in Literature Teaching in EFL/ESL: New Perspectives. Rahma Al-Mahrooqi, ed. Muscat: Sultan Qaboos University Press, 2012: 302-314.

“Reader’s Guide” for the English version of Khadija bint Alawi al-Thahab’s My Grandmother’s Stories: Folk Tales from Dhofar (Translated by W. Scott Chahanovich, U.S. Fulbright Scholar at Dhofar University, 2009-2010). Washington, D.C: Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center, 2012: 17-23.

Conference Presentations – anthropology/ culture/ travel writing

“Conducting Research on the Arabian Peninsula: Creating Effective Interactions,” Middle East Studies Association Annual Conference. Nov. 14, 2024.

“Windguru and Other Gurus: Fishing off the Coast of Dhofar, Oman,” Navigating the Transcultural Indian Ocean: Texts and Practices in Contact Conference, sponsored by the Rutter Project. June 5, 2024

“Crafting a Home: Interior Home Design in Southern Oman.” Home/Making Symposium, Concordia University. Montreal. May 12, 2023. https://www.concordia.ca/finearts/events/home-making.html

“Good Governance and Open Spaces: How the State and Residents Negotiate the Use of Government Land in Dhofar, Oman.” AnthroState Talks for the European Association of Social Anthropologists Network on Anthropologies of the State. May 4, 2023. https://easaonline.org/networks/anthrostate/talks

“Explorations in the North-west Indian Ocean: The Research Journeys of the ‘Palinurus’ along the Omani Coast in the mid-1800s.” Research Expeditions to India and the Indian Ocean in Early Modern and Modern Times, sponsored by the German Maritime Museum / Leibniz Institute for Maritime History. Nov. 3, 2022.

“Private Lives in Public Spaces: Perceptions of Space-Usage in Southern Oman.” Middle East Studies Association annual conference. Montreal, Quebec. December 2, 2021.

“The Costs and Benefits of Fishing in Southern Oman.” Fish as Food: Lifestyle and a Sustainable Future, annual conference of the International Commission on the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition, hosted at the University of Liverpool. Sept. 1, 2021.

“Ethical Eating in Southern Oman.” Just Food, virtual conference of the Association for the Study of Food and Society; Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society; Canadian Association for Food Studies and the Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition, hosted by the Culinary Institute of America and New York University. June 12, 2021.

“Foodways in Southern Oman,” for the session “Uncovering Truths, Building Responsibility in A Pandemic: Insights from Emerging Monographs at the Nexus of Culture, Food, and Agriculture.” American Anthropological Association. Nov. 9, 2020.

with Keye Tersmette. “Ghurba at Home – Views from Oman.” The Arab World as Ghurba: Citizenship, Identity and Belonging in Literature and Popular Culture, University of Warwick. June 21, 2019.

“Accounts from the Journeys of the Brig ‘Palinurus’ Along the Dhofar Coast in the mid-1800s.” Maritime Exploration and Memory Conference, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England. Sept. 15, 2018.

“Recent Views on Oman.” British Society for Middle East Studies, University of Edinburgh. July 6, 2017.

“Female, Femininity, Male and Masculinity in the Gibali-speaking Tribes of Southern Oman.” The Gulf Research Conference, Cambridge University. August 2, 2017.

“‘Words Mean Nothing’: Fluency in Language and Fluency in Culture in Anthropology Fieldwork in Southern Oman.” British Society for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Wales. July 15, 2016.

“’Why Would I Hurt a Woman?’: Respectful/ Respecting Women in Southern Oman.” Middle East Studies Association Conference, Denver. Nov. 21, 2015.

“Generosity, Gift-giving and Gift-avoiding in Southern Oman.” British Foundation for the Study of Arabia’s Seminar for Arabian Studies, The British Museum, London. July 27, 2014.

“‘I Do Not Need the Night’: The Gibali Conception of Self-Respect in Southern Oman.” Middle East Studies Association Conference, New Orleans. October 12, 2013.

“They Came, They Saw, They Fought, They Compromised, They Left: The Foreign Military Presence in the Dhofar War (Oman, 1965-1975).” Royal Geographical Society Annual Conference; Edinburgh. July 3, 2012.

 “Waiting for [both] the Barbarians”: Tourism in the Dhofar Region of Oman.” Traditions and Transformations: Tourism, Heritage and Cultural Change in the Middle East and North Africa Region; Amman, Jordan. April 6, 2009.

Conference presentations – literature/ pedagogy

“Finding the Right Texts for Teaching Literature, Cultures, and Empathy in the Middle East.” American Comparative Literature Association Conference. April 9, 2021.

“‘I Came to You for Good’: An Ethnographic Discussion of Folk Tales from Southern Oman.” Third Joint Seminar of The Folklore Society and the Royal Anthropological Institute, Royal Anthropological Institute, London. Oct. 26, 2017.

“Antigone, Alcestis, Deanira and Philoketes visit the Empty Quarter: The Reception of Greek Drama on the Arabian Peninsula.” American Comparative Literature Association Conference, University of Utrecht. July 8, 2017.

“‘A Man Was Always Catching Fish’: Fairy Tale Elements in the Ali al-Mahri/ Johnstone/ Rubin Gibali Texts from Southern Oman.” American Comparative Literature Association Conference, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. March 18, 2016.

“Analyzing Arabic Teaching to Improve English Teaching.” TESOL Arabia Annual Conference; Dubai. March 14, 2014.

 “John Clare Looks Good in a Dishdash: Linking John Clare to Middle Eastern Poetry.” Modern Language Association Annual Conference, Chicago. January 7, 2011.

“How Can You Hate the Sun?: Translating Western Conceptions of Nature.” Humanities Education and Research Association, Chicago, Illinois. April 9, 2009. 

“Do You Have Anything on Cowboys?: Creating a University Library in the Middle East,” with Chris Sugnet. Southwest/Texas Popular Culture Association Conference, Albuquerque. Feb., 2000.

Creative Non-fiction

“Yemen with Yul,” in Emanations 11. Independently published, 2024: 417-429.

“Questions About Food and Ethics,” in Emanations: When a Planet was a Planet. Brookline, MA: International Authors, 2021: 403-408

“Ok Kilito, I Won’t Speak Your Language: Reflections after Reading Thou Shalt Not Speak My Language,” in Octo-Emanations. Carter Kaplan, ed. Brookline, MA: International Authors, 2020: 233-236.

“Predator Anthropologists, Anthropologist Predators: Anthropological Metaphors in Popular Movies,” Open Anthropology Research Repository. Aug. 25, 2020. https://www.openanthroresearch.org/doi/abs/10.1002/oarr.10000333.1

“What’s in Your Bag?” Anthropology News. American Anthropological Association. Oct. 30, 2019. http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2019/07/23/whats-in-your-bag-2019-edition/

“Living Expat,” in Emanations: Chorus Pleiades. Carter Kaplan, ed. Brookline, MA: International Authors, 2018: 308-318.

“Research in Foreign Cultures,” in Emanations: Foray into Forever. Carter Kaplan, ed. Brookline, MA: International Authors, 2014: 355-358.

 “Throwing Children in the Street: Explaining Western Culture to Omanis,” in Emanations: Third Eye. Carter Kaplan, ed. Brookline, MA: International Authors, 2013: 265-274.

 “To Learn Arabic, You Have to Talk the Talk,” The Chronicle of Higher Education. May 31, 2012. http://chronicle.com/article/To-Learn-Arabic-You-Have-to/132057

“Your Zimbabwe Stories” and “Memsahib 101,” in Emanations: Sidestepping Academic Dicta into the Higher Ecstatic Ethos. Carter Kaplan, ed. Brookline, MA: International Authors, 2012: 305-312.

 “Bringing Theory Home in Oman,” The Chronicle of Higher Education. July 10, 2011: B24.

            http://chronicle.com/article/Bringing-Theory-Home-in-Oman/128139/

“In the House of the Infidel or Perfume: The Great Healer,” Button 16, 2011: 6-9.

 “For Middle East expats, a fake-holly, not-so-jolly Christmas,” The Washington Post, Dec. 23, 2009: C3.

 “An Open Letter to Alice Walker,” The Chronicle of Higher Education. Feb. 20, 2009: B11.

            http://chronicle.texterity.com/chronicle/20090220b/?pg=11#pg11

 

 

Bibliography – Arabian Peninsula Literature: Fiction, Drama, Poetry and Secondary Sources

This is a selected bibliography of texts related to Arabian Peninsula/ Middle Eastern literature.

[writers who are underlined are major authors with many other publications]

Arabian Peninsula Writing

general

Akers, Deborah and Abubaker Bagader, eds. and trans. 2008. Oranges in the Sun: Short Stories from the Arabian Gulf. London: Lynne Rienner.

Alshammari, Shahd. 2017. Notes on the Flesh. Malta: Faraxa Publishing.

Jayyusi, Salma Khadra, ed. 1988. The Literature of Modern Arabia: An Anthology. London: Kegan Paul International.

Michalak-Pikulska, Barbara. 2016. Modern Literature of the Gulf. Bern: Peter Lang GmbH.

Meguid, Ibrahim Abdel. 2006. The Other Place. Farouk Abdel Wahab, trans. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press.

Wilson, G. Willow. 2012. Alif the Unseen. New York, Grove Press.

also note:

The Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation [https://www.banipaltrust.org.uk/prize/

Banipal Magazine [ https://www.banipal.co.uk/ ] which has special issues on specific countries, for example: Yemen [ https://www.banipal.co.uk/back_issues/73/issue-36/ ]

Emirates

Al Murr, Mohammad. 2008. Dubai Tales. Peter Clark and Jack Briggs, trans. Dubai: Motivate Publishing.

—. 1998. “The Wink of the Mona Lisa” and Other Stories from the Gulf. Jack Briggs, trans. Dubai: Motivate Publishing.

Al-Suwaidi, Thani. The Diesel.

Johnson-Davies, Denys, ed. 2009. In a Fertile Desert: Modern Writing from the United Arab Emirates. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press.

Krishnadas. 2007. Dubai Puzha: When Seagulls Fly Over Dubai Creek. ‎Thrissur, Kerala: Green Books.

Michalak-Pikulska, Barbara. 2012. Modern Literature of the United Arab Emirates. Krakow: Jagiellonian University Press.

Unnikrishnan, Deepak. Temporary People.

Kuwait

Abulhawa, Susan. 2020. Against the Loveless World.

Al Nakib, Mai. 2023. An Unlasting Home. Mariner Books: New York.

Alsanousi, Saud. The Bamboo Stalk.

Oman

Al Farsi, Abdulaziz. 2013. Earth Weeps, Saturn Laughs: A Modern Omani Novel. Nancy Roberts, trans. Cairo: American University of Cairo Press.

Alharthi, Jokha. 2019. Celestial Bodies. Marilyn Booth, trans. New York: Catapult.

Hamed, Huda. I Saw Her in my Dreams.

Ibrahim, Sonallah. 2001. Warda. Hosam Aboul-Ela, trans. Yale University Press: New Haven.

Michalak-Pikulska, Barbara. 2002. Modern Poetry and Prose of Oman. Krakow: The Enigma Press.

Saudi

Al-Khamis, Omaima Abdullah. Al-Bahriyat.

Alireza, Marianne. 2002. At the Drop of a Veil.

Alsanea, Rajaa. 2007. Girls of Riyadh. London: Penguin.

Benyamin. 2021. Goat Days. Joseph Koyippally, trans. Efinito.

Ferraris, Zoe. 2008. Finding Noof. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: New York.

—. 2010.  City of Veils. New York: Little Brown.

—. 2012. Kingdom of Strangers. New York: Little Brown.

Munif, ‘Abd al-Rahman. 1989. Cities of Salt. Peter Theroux, trans. Random House: New York.

Yemen

‘Abd al-Wali, Mohammad. They Die Strangers.

Ba-Amer, Salih. 1988. “Dancing by the Light of the Moon,” in The Literature of Modern Arabia: An Anthology. S. K. Jayyusi, ed. London: Kegan Paul International. 318-22.

Bajaber, Khadija Abdalla. 2021. House of Rust.

Dammaj, Zayd Mutee. 1994. The Hostage. Interlink Books: Northampton, MA.

Hunter, Barry Stewart. 2017. Aden.

Classical/ Pre-Modern Fiction and Poetry

Allen, Roger. 2005. The Arabic Literary Heritage: The Development of its Genres and Criticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Arberry, A.J. 1965. Arabic Poetry: A Primer for Students. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Farrin, Raymond. 2011. Abundance from the Desert: Classical Arabic Poetry. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.

Irwin, R. 2002. Night and Horses and the Desert: An Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature. New York: Anchor.

Sells, M., trans. 1989. Desert Tracings: Six Classic Arabian Odes by Alqama, Shanfara, Labid, Antara, Al-Asha and Dhu al-Rumma. Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press.

Folk/fairy tales

Al Taie, Hatim and Joan Pickersgill. 2008. Omani Folk Tales. Muscat, Oman: Al Roya Press and Publishing House.

al-Thahab, Khadija bint Alawi. 2012/ Stories of My Grandmother. W. Scott Chahanovich, ed. Washington, D.C:  Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center.

Behnam, Mariam. 2001. Heirloom: Evening Tales from the East. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

ElMahi, Ali Tigani and Ahmed Mohamed al Khatheri. 2015. “A Folk Story from Dhofar: A Pathway to Indigenous Knowledge.” Journal of Arts and Social Sciences 6.2: 5-12. DOI:10.24200/jass.vol6iss2

Hamad, Abdulsalam. 2006. Omani Folk Tales. Seeb: Al-Dhamri Bookshop.

Johnstone, T.M. 1974. “Folklore and Folk Literature in Oman and Socotra.” Arabian Studies 1: 7-24.

Johnstone, T.M. 1983. “Folk-Tales and Folk-lore of Dhofar.” Journal of Oman Studies 6.1: 123-127.

—. 1978. “A St. George of Dhofar.” Arabian Studies 4: 59-65.

—. 1974. “Folklore and Folk Literature in Oman and Socotra.” Arabian Studies 1: 7-24.

Kamal, M. 1999. Juha: Last of the Errant Knights. J. Briggs, trans. Dubai: Motivate Publishing.

Mershen, Birgit. 2004. “Ibn Muqaarab and Naynuh: A Folk-tale from Tiwi.” Journal of Oman Studies 13: 91-97.

Paine, Patty, Jesse Ulmer and Michael Hersrud, eds. 2013. The Donkey Lady and Other Tales from the Arabian Gulf.  Highclere, Berkshire: Berkshire Academic Press.

Tales of the Marvelous and News of the Strange. 2014. Malcome Lyons, trans. London: Penguin.

Todino-Gonguet, Grace. Halimah and the Snake, and other Omani Folk Tales. 2008. London: Stacey International.

Wilson, G. Willow. 2012. Alif the Unseen. New York, Grove Press.

Poetry

al Hajri, Hilal. 2014. The Night is Mine. Khalid al Balushi. trans. Muscat: Ministry of Heritage and Culture.

Al Balushi, Khalid, ed. and trans. 2016. Contemporary Omani Poetry in English. Muscat: Ministry of Heritage and Culture.

Handal, N., ed. 2001. The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology. New York: Interlink.

Johnstone, T. M. 1972. “The Language of Poetry in Dhofar.” The Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 35.1: 1-17.

Morris, Miranda. 1985. “A Poem in Jibbali.” Journal of Oman Studies 7: 121-30.

Arabic/ Islamic Drama, Fiction and Poetry

Al Aswany, Alaa. 2006. The Yacoubian Building (Egypt). Harper: New York.

Alghosaibi, Ghazi. 1996. An Apartment Called Freedom (Egypt). Leslie McLoughlin, trans. Kegan Paul.

Al-Hakim, T. 1981. Plays, Prefaces and Postscripts of Tawfiq Al-Hakim, Volume One. W. M. Hutchins, trans. Washington D.C.: Three Continents Press.

Carlson, M, ed. 2005. The Arab Oedipus: Four plays. New York: Martin E. Segal Theater Center Publications.

Charara, H, ed. 2008. Inclined to Speak: An Anthology of Contemporary Arab-American Poetry. Fayetteville, AK: The University of Arkansas Press.

Elmusa, S. 2008. Flawed Landscape: Poems 1987-2008. Northhampton, MA: Interlink.

Husni, R. and Newman, D., eds. 2008. Modern Arabic Short Stories: A Bilingual Reader. London: Saqi.

Johnson-Davies, Denys. ed. 2006. The Anchor Book of Modern Arabic Fiction. New York: Anchor Books/ Random House.

Johnson-Davies, Denys, ed. 1994. Arabic Short Stories. Berkeley: University of CA Press.

Kabbani, Nizar. 1999. Arabian Love Poems. B. K. Franieh and C. R. Brown, trans. London: Lynne Rienner.

Kahf, M. 2003. E-mails from Scheherazade. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.

Kaldas, P. and Mattawa, K, eds. 2009. Dinarzad’s Children: An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Fiction. Fayetteville, AK: The University of Arkansas Press.

Kamal, M. 1999. Juha: Last of the Errant Knights. J. Briggs, trans. Dubai: Motivate Publishing.

Kanafani, Ghassan. 1998. Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories. Hilary Kilpatrick, trans. Boulder: ‎Lynne Rienner Publishers.

Mahfouz, Naguib. 1990. The Cairo Trilogy. Doubleday: New York.

Mersal, I. 2008. These are not Oranges, My Love. Riverdale, NY: Sheep Meadow Press.

Nye, N. S. 2002. 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East. New York: Greenwillow.

—., ed. 1996. This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from Around the World. New York: Aladdin.

Qabbani, Nizar. 2006. On Entering the Sea: The Erotic and Other Poetry of Nizar Qabbani. Lena Jayyusi and Sharif Elmusa. trans. Northampton, MA: Interlink Publishing.

Salih, Tayeb. 1995. “The Doum Tree of Wad Hamid,” in Global Voices: Contemporary Literature from the Non-Western World. Arthur Biddle, ed. Eaglewood Cliffs, NJ: Blair Press. 512-522.

Washburn, K. and Major, J, eds. 1998. World Poetry. New York, W.W. Norton.

Williams, D. 1993. Traveling Mercies. Cambridge, MA: Alice James Books.

Literature/ language/ multi-cultural learning

Al Harthi, A. 2005. “Distance Higher Education Experiences of Arab Gulf Students in the United States: A Cultural Perspective.”  International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning 6.3: 1-14.

Amin-Zaki, Amel. 1996. “Religious and Cultural Considerations in Translating Shakespeare into Arabic,” in Between Language and Cultures: Translation and Cross-Cultural Texts. Anuradha Dingwaney and Carol Maier, eds. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. 223-44.

Baer, Brian James. 2020. “From Cultural Translation to Untranslatability – من الترجمة الثقافية إلى استحالة الترجمة: Theorizing Translation outside Translation Studies.” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 40: 139-63.

Bell, Duncan. 2003. “Mythscapes: Memory, Mythology, and National Identity.” The British Journal of Sociology 54.1: 63-81.

Booth, Marilyn. 2010. “‘The Muslim Woman’ as Celebrity Author and the Politics of Translating Arabic: Girls of Riyadh Go on the Road.” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 6.3: 149-82.

Boyd, F. 2002. “Conditions, Concessions, and the Many Tender Mercies of Learning through Multicultural Literature.” Reading Research and Instruction 42.1: 58-92.

Brooks, W. 2006. “Reading Representation of Themselves.” Reading Research Quarterly, 41, 372-392.

Gatling, Benjamin. 2020, Summer. “There Isn’t Belief, Just Believing: Rethinking Belief as a Keyword of Folklore Studies.” The Journal of American Folklore 133.529: 307-28.

Grosjean, François. 2015. “Bicultural Bilinguals.” International Journal of Bilingualism 19.5: 572–86.

Halstead, J. M. 2004. “An Islamic Concept of Education.” Comparative Education 40: 517-29.

Heble, Ayesha. 2007. “Teaching Literature On-line to Arab students: Using Technology to Overcome Cultural Restrictions.” Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 6.2: 219-226.

Jabra, Jabra. 1980. “Modern Arabic Literature and the West,” in Critical Perspectives on Modern Arabic Literature. Issa Boullata, ed. Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press. 8-20.

Mazawi, Andreas. 2010. “Naming the Imaginary: ‘Building an Arab Knowledge Society’ and the Contested Terrain of Educational Reform for Development,” in Trajectories of Education in the Arab World: Legacies and Challenges. Osama Abin-Mershed, ed. London: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and Routledge.

McDermott, Ray and Varenne, Herve. 2007. “Reconstructing Culture in Educational Research,” in Innovations in Educational Ethnography, G. Spindler and L. Hammond, eds. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. 3-31.

Michalak-Pikulska, Barbara. 2006. “The Mosaic of Quotations and the Labyrinth of Interpretations: The Problems of Intertextuality in the Modern Literature of the Gulf.” Intertextuality in Modern Arabic Literature since 1967. 187-200.

Ogulnick, K. 2005. “Learning Language/ Learning Self,” in Intercultural Discourse and Communication: The Essential Readings. S. Kiesling and C. Bratt Paulston, eds. Oxford: Blackwell. 250-4.

Ramsey, Gail. 2006. “The Past in the Present: Aspects of Intertextuality in Modern Literature in the Gulf.” Intertextuality in Modern Arabic Literature since 1967. 161-86.

—. 2004. “Confining the Guest Labourers to the Realm of the Subaltern in Modern Literature from the Gulf. Orientalia Succana, 53: 133-42.

Stadnicki, Roman. 2023. “Branding Backlash: The Erring of Urban Advertising in Gulf Cities,” in Branding the Middle East: Communication Strategies and Image Building from Qom to Casablanca. Steffen Wippel, ed. Berlin: De Gruyter. 497-516.

Zemrani, Aziza, Deborah L. Trent and Sawsan Abutabenjeh. 2020, Dec. “Cultural Competency Teaching and Practice in the MENA.” AlMuntaqa 3.2: 64-7.

Webb, Allen. 2012. Teaching the Literature of Today’s Middle East. London: Routledge.

Using Creative Writing Prompts in Foreign Language Learning

Teaching: Reflections on Culture Shocks

Teaching Literature and Staying au courant – The Man from Nowhere and the Ancient Greeks

Navigating without Language

Poems

Cultural Preferences for Gathering Information – Talk to a Person or Type into your Phone?

4 months into readjusting to the States and my cultural shock is ebbing. I am thankfully out of “toddler brain,” when I said anything that came to my mind. My imposter syndrome is also slowly fading; I no longer feel that I am “playing” at being American.

The exhaustion still comes and goes in irregular waves. I am still surprised at how many Americans move through the world distracted: looking at a screen, listening/ talking as they walk. I am slowly learning not to call people “dear”; in Oman, women at work often call each other a nickname, term of endearments or a matronymic [“mother of,” such as Um Ahmed]. First names are not commonly used in Oman, whereas in American workspaces, using first names is expected and endearments are NOT appropriate.

Three issues have surprised me. The first is what “I am sorry” means. I spent years in Oman explaining that “I am sorry” in America means “I am not happy to hear that,” not “I am responsible.” However, I am now seeing that this is a Midwestern usage.

I drop “I am sorry” several times a day in the office and I am constantly told “you don’t need to say that!” But after 5 years in Wisconsin and 5 years in North Dakota, I am hard-wired to apologize for any of my actions that caused a problem for others. Not to mention apologizing when I hear any kind of bad news and, on occasion, apologizing to pieces of furniture that I bump into. That midwestern outlook is impossible to shake.

A second, more serious, issue is rethinking communication styles. I have written several essays about how Omanis convey information in indirect ways. For example, when a female Omani friend wrote “Hi” to me on a WhatsApp message, I knew that meant there is a big problem to discuss and when I reply, I need to make sure I have at least 10 minutes free to chat about what is going on. (If she was just checking in/ sending a greeting, she would write more than one word. One word = emergency.) As I learned this style of communicating, I contrasted it to a more direct American style.

But now that I am back in the States, I am often confused about what Americans are trying to convey to me. When I hear, “it’s Ok,” I don’t know if that means, “it’s Ok” or “it’s not Ok but I have to pretend it’s Ok so, without my being clear, you should pick up that I am not Ok.”

The most important issue that I am still struggling with is how to gather information. In Oman, you get data from people by walking into someone’s office or (gasp!) calling them.

I am learning that in the States, you don’t call. You chat if you run into someone in the office, but you often communicate with colleagues through electronic means, such as Slack. But even more importantly, you should try to figure out the problem yourself using electronic means: Google, YouTube, etc.

My colleagues have been very patient as I work through this transition. I never think to use my phone when I don’t understand something. I stand up and go find a person to ask. More than once, I have walked up to a group of several people, asked a question and everyone picked up their phone to find the answer. I was startled and embarrassed, although no one has said anything to me, the implication is: figure it out with a search engine.

It’s an on-going adjustment to realize that data is out there in the ether for me to find instead of residing in a person who I need to ask.

Culture Shock: The Land of Detachment and Toolboxes

Researching and Working on the Arabian Peninsula: Creating Effective Interactions

Culture Shock: (Not) Being Under Observation

Culture Shock – Drugs, Medicines, Choices and Chances

Reflections on Ethnographic Work: Being Safe and Secure

I will be presenting “Conducting Research on the Arabian Peninsula: How To Create Effective Interactions” at the Middle East Studies Association Annual Conference

I will be presenting my paper “Conducting Research on the Arabian Peninsula: How To Create Effective Interactions” at the Middle East Studies Association Annual Conference on Nov. 13 at 11:30 EST.

https://my-mesa.org/program/sessions/view/eyJpdiI6InVvTitCY2FmRlFVaWt0Ym1vRkh4OGc9PSIsInZhbHVlIjoiUmN6bTAyWlloNnkzelNYei82ZlJxZz09IiwibWFjIjoiOGQxNmUwMjE2ZTdjZWZhYWJlMWUyMzNkNGRlZWM4NGYyNTk4ZWVlYjQyZGQwNDM1ODIwYThiMTA1NjUwMTIyYyIsInRhZyI6IiJ9

abstract

My talk outlines strategies for anthropologists and researchers to communicate effectively on the Arabian Peninsula, with a concentration on Southern Arabia. Using first-person ethnographic accounts, as well as scholarly texts from the fields of anthropology, history, literature, political science and travel writing, this presentation will give clear advice so non-locals can create successful interactions. As I have lived on the Arabian Peninsula for more than 20 years, this talk is a distillation of observations, academic research and a longstanding, deep involvement within local communities. My background experience includes teaching cultural studies classes at the graduate and undergraduate level, giving lectures about local cultures to visiting expats, doing orientation lectures for new faculty, publishing scholarly and non-fiction articles about cultural interactions and taking classes taught by locals.

How NOT to Describe People Who Are Foreign to You: Exoticizing Omanis

A recent article in a major English-language newspaper about the Dhofar region of Oman included the sentence:

They [Omanis] are immensely private, with women rarely leaving the home and men going about their work in tribal clothes with elaborate head wraps, rifles and decorative daggers known as khanjars.

I taught at a university in the Dhofar region for 19 years, returning to the States 3 months ago. This text is not only similar to many travel articles, it is similar to books written in the early 1900s in which Omanis were portrayed as primitive and exotic.

There are a couple of layers to the above quote. One is that Dhofari women do leave the home. They might be a pharmacist, a teacher, a small-business owner or a director within a large organization. They might work in a law office, a restaurant, an airline or a company that leads tours for foreigners. Their work might also be taking care of goats, cultivating plants, gathering shellfish, designing clothes, taking photographs at events or making perfumes. These are some of the jobs that my female Dhofari friends have; I also have female friends who are studying for graduate degrees.

And they leave the house for the social work of connecting with and supporting family members by visiting new mothers and the newly wed, relatives who are not feeling well, elderly family members, those who are mourning and those who are celebrating.

Lastly, “rarely leaving the home” when writing about Muslim, tribal women usually carries the implied meaning of “not allowed to leave.” Thus, a woman who stays home might be viewed as inactive, isolated, not earning money and/or unhappy. However, homes in Oman are frequently multi-generational with over 30 family members living together. In addition, homes of relatives are often located close to each other so that people can walk short distances to see parents, siblings, cousins, etc.

The Dhofari women I know who don’t study or have conventional employment have options. They might be the social lynch pin for their family by acting as primary care-giver for a disabled relative, running a day-care for their nieces, nephews and neighbors’ children or being responsible for not only all the meals in the house, but also for feeding impoverished neighbors and/ or relatives. Or they might learn foreign languages, do the floor-plan for the new family house, run a web-site devoted to reading and culture, or create an Instagram business that centers on food, beauty, fashion or perfume.

I know that a travel writer, excited about a culture that is new to them, might not want to go into all these kinds of details. But when the writer was in Dhofar, they saw dozens, if not hundreds, of women outside the house. Women drive (there are women taxi drivers) and work in hotels, stores and the airport. And the writer saw dozens, if not hundreds, of men who were not carrying guns or knives. Men who herd animals carry a gun for protection from wolves and hyenas; men going to a formal event such as a wedding, wear a khanjar (dagger), belt and shawl as part of standard ceremonial attire.

Why write something that was constantly disproved by observation? And if the writer was told this information, I think that journalists should ask themselves when interviewing a person: What is this person getting in return?

A journalist/ writer is getting good copy when they conduct an interview. They are gathering quotes to weave into their story which they plan to publish, hoping their words will be read, discussed, cited and passed on. But the interviewee is also thinking of the future – they want their words to be read and they may be speaking to create or counteract opinions.

Several times when I was doing research an Omani interviewee would make a statement and then remark how they were speaking through me to an intended audience. For example, when talking to Dhofari men about driving their female kin to visit relatives, one said, “I know you [Americans] think we are not good with our women.”

An Omani saying “women [are] rarely leaving the home” might be talking through the journalist to represent the area in a certain way. Again, a casual visitor might not know all these kinds of details but the solution is simple: avoid blanket statements by adding modifiers: “some women” and “some men.” Another way to avoid this kind of overgeneralization is to ask Omanis and/ or people familiar with the area to double-check the article before publication

To me, the above quote sounds like “zoo mode,” i.e., let’s talk about these perfectly normal people as though they were exotic animals. When a person in Cambridge, MA wears a scarf because it is cold, am I going to talk about “elaborate head wraps”? No. Dhofari men wear scarves that are as exotic and take as much time to put on as my L.L. Bean scarf.

Why write that Dhofaris have “tribal clothes”? Why not simply explain what they are wearing? Every culture has tribal clothes. I work in Cambridge where the tribal clothes are khakis with button-down shirts and everyone is carrying their SPECIAL, SACRED, TRIBAL OBJECT: a waterbottle.

(Minor point – the article includes a photo with the caption “The beaches can get busy in the khareef [monsoon] season.” The photo was not taken during the khareef season because the ocean is quiet; there are no waves. In the khareef season, there are high waves for over two months.)

my essay about “zoo mode” – Reflections on Ethnographic Research: Changes within Cultures

a discussion of “zoo mode” in travel books from the 1890s-1950s (from Annotated Bibliography of Texts Pertaining to the Dhofar Region of Oman)

Theodore and Mabel had already explored in Italy, Greece, Bahrain, South Africa, Ethiopia, Sudan and Yemen when they arrived in Oman. Their trip to Dhofar began when they left “Maskat” (Muscat) December 17th, 1894 and traveled by ship south along the coast, arriving in Mirbat on January 20. They left the Dhofar region from Al Hafa (part of modern day Salalah) on January 23, 1894. They traveled along the coast and a short distance in the mountains in the late 1800s; I believe they are the first Westerners to visit the Dhofar mountains to write a description of it.

Although James and Mabel Bent were not in the employ of the British government, they were quintessential Victorian age travelers who, in their writing, specifically support British imperialism in their  Southern Arabia (1900/ 2005).[5] The book, written by Mabel after Theodore died soon after they returned to England from Oman, viewed all landscapes through the perspective of how the land might be useful to the Empire:

If this tract of country comes into the hands of a civilizing nation, it will be capable of great and useful development…and a health resort for the inhabitants [i.e. British inhabitants] of the burnt-up centers of Arabian commerce, Aden and Maskat (274).

The Gibalis, here referred to as Qara, traveling with the Bents, however, saw the Bents as equals. The Qara men she traveled with always addressed her, to her anger, only as “Mabel” (with the prefix when calling a person “ya,” i.e., Ya Mabel!) and informed the Bents that “they did not wish us to give them orders of any kind as they were sheikhs” and “We are gentleman” (258, 266). The mountain people of Dhofar, Mabel Bent writes, are “endowed with a spirit of independence which makes him resent the slightest approach to legal supervision…They would not march longer than they liked; they would only take us where they wished… and if we asked them not to sing at night and disturb our rest, they always set to work with greater vigor” (248).

But she does include a fair amount of real information, taking the time for example to explain how indigo is used to dye clothes (145).  She describes the scenery with careful attention to plants, rock formations, distances, etc. (e.g., Wadi Ghersid, 256; Wadi Nahast, 265) and, noticing that the language spoken in the “Gara” [Qara] mountains was not a dialect, she includes a few words (275). Some of her information is still current. She mentions, for example, that oaths “to divorce a favorite wife, are really good” (180) and the technique of cooking on stones (250) which I have seen practiced several times.

The Bents eventually stop struggling to control and “we gave up any attempt to guide our own footsteps, but left ourselves entirely in his [Sheik Sehel] hands, to take us whether he would and spend as long about it as he liked” (257) but her summation is typical of British Victorian-era travelers: “we had discovered a real Paradise in the wilderness, which will be a rich prize for the civilized nation which is enterprising enough to appropriate it” (276).

A geologist who traveled with Bertram Thomas on a short visit to Dhofar in the 19020s writes

Regarding the interesting non-Arab tribes, the Mahri and the Gara…They are entirely nomad, and live under the shelter of trees or caves. They have no cultivation, but live on the produce of large herds of cattle and some camels. I found them always very friendly, and on several occasions I was persuaded to partake of a meal with them…Their diet consists exclusively of meat and milk products. Firearms are very scare among these tribes, instead they are armed with very poor quality swords and small shields of wood or shark-skin. They are also very adept at throwing a short pointed stick. (Lees 1928 456, 457).

As the title suggests, Bertram Thomas’s Arabia Felix Across the Empty Quarter of Arabia (1932) is happy book which details his famous first crossing of the Empty Quarter starting from Salalah. He begins the book with a general history told with imperialistic British moralizing judgment, i.e., “for where treachery is a habit of mind, men are actuated by the stern necessities of the moment, not by any principles of morality.” As the Bents discovered, Thomas asserts that “A European who would travel happily must be prepared to adapt himself to their standards” but “[o]ften I found myself the only member of my party in the saddle, while the others walked for long hours to spare their mounts” (192, 176).  The main differences between Thomas and the Bents is that he traveled later, (he arrived in Salalah October 8th, 1930), did longer and more difficult journeys and was more interested in recording the Omanis’ speech and habits.

Many of the details he sets out are still prevalent as with the cushions hard as “medicine balls” in “bright scarlet or emerald-colored trappings” (17), the description of a dance (34), food preparation (e.g., making bread 166) and the list of shrines (85). He notices that men in the mountains do not eat chicken, a habit that is still followed by older men from the mountain tribes (59). Thomas tells the story of killing a chameleon brought in by an old man who then exclaims “it is treachery. I found it [the animal] innocent in a bush and it came along with me trusting and this is what I consent to happen to it” (63). I see exactly the same framework of not killing an animal being used by the Gibali men I know, to the point of a man not killing a scorpion which has stung him.

Thomas and Thesiger are divided by the Second World War. Thesiger traveled through present day Oman, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates between 1946 and 1950. In addition to Arabian Sands (1959), he published many articles on his travels (1946, 1948, 1949, 1950). Thesiger marks a break with the previous writers as he is neither an accidental traveler (like the shipwreck narratives) nor is he traveling for imperial benefits (anchorage/ supply depots) or even to collect knowledge for knowledge’s sake, but for personal interest and personal challenge.

Thesiger, like Thomas, crossed the Rub al Khali but he spent more time with his guides and was far more interested in their lives than Thomas. In talking about Dhofar, he mentions the traditional dark blue cloth (45), mountain honey for costal sardine trade (49), and throwing sticks (49) that are evident in the Bents’ and Thomas’ description, but he goes farther than any of them in explaining both his point of view and the point of view of his companions.

Thomas reports that “each of my companions not only knew at a glance the footmarks of every camel and man of my caravan, but claimed to know those of his absent tribe, and not a few of his enemies” (178). Thesiger gives the same information but includes specific examples (e.g., 122). Thomas notes that “where food or water were short, no one of them would think of not sharing it equally with his companions, and if anyone was away, perhaps tending his camels, all would wait his return to eat together” (157); this is an accurate description (still in practice today) but he did not ‘live’ this as Thesiger did, sitting thirsty and impatient for the others to come (65).

After Thesiger, the next travel writer is Jan (then James) Morris’ journey with Sultan Said bin Taymur from Salalah to the north of Oman in 1956 as described in Sultan in Oman (1957/ 2008). Whereas Dhofaris are discussed with accuracy and respect by Thesiger, Morris lets loose with insults as demeaning as the Bents. It is rather a surprise, after the gradually lowering racist/ condescending tone seen in the arc from the Bents through Thomas to Thesiger, to read her smug, complacent, and judgmental book.

She begins by widely overstating her achievement, declaring that she undertook “The last classic journeys of the Arabian Peninsula,” as if being driven in a jeep from Salalah to Muscat in 1956 was on par with Dougherty or Philby (1). To drive home the (moribund) English tradition, she notes that “Curzon and Gertrude Bell rose with us approvingly” (2).

She describes Gibalis as

tribes of strange non-Arab people…with their poor clothes, their indigo-stained faces, their immemorial prejudices. [In the monsoon season] the plain was full of these queer Stone Age figures, lean and handsome, and they wandered like fauns through the little marketplaces of Salala. (22)

They have “shaggy,” “strange” and “fuzzy” hair and practice “obscure rituals, taboos, and prejudices” (30, 39, 31). In keeping with the general tone of relegating the inhabitants to prehistoric times, there is no mention of guns. The people “hurl in the general direction of their neighbors the heavy throwing sticks (less scientific than boomerangs) with which they were sometimes quaintly armed” (40). It is clear than even in Thomas’ accounts, much less Thesiger, that the men of this region had access to and knowledge of guns. In fact, the cover of one edition is one of Thesiger’s photos showing Bin Ghabaisha holding a rifle.

The descriptions illuminate more about Morris’ travels than Oman, i.e., Risut is “Like a bay in Cornwall or northern California” (20). “The deeper we penetrated into these Qara foothills, the more lifeless and unearthly the country seemed… It was like an empty Lebanon;” the “abyss of Dahaq” is compared to “Boulder or Grand Coulee” and the Qara mountains “felt like England without the churches, or Kentucky without the white palings” (27, 27, 38). A small lake is “‘Better than the Backs,’ said my companion, ‘not so many undergraduates’” which only makes sense if the reader knows this is a term referring to the place where several Cambridge colleges back onto the River Cam (30).

Travel books about Dhofar from the 1980s onwards

Rory Allen’s Oman: Under Arabian Skies (2010) focus almost exclusively on the authors’ feelings, and when describing Omanis, the prose turns a distinct shade of orientalist purple, as in:

There is a sense of lawlessness [with the Bedu of Sharqiyah]…this anarchy gives one a sense of freedom and of a being without constraint. Rousseau’s “Noble Savage” comes to mind when looking at these Bedu, and they are noble and have not lost that primitive force inside. In Jungian terms their primitive psyche remains intact, that primeval power and urge that makes the Bedu so strong, so essential, individual, intuitive and spontaneous and above all it makes him so vital and impossible to control or rein in. This makes him the free spirit that down deep we all want to be. (Allen 2010 61)

There are several books by travelers or ex-pats about Oman which include a chapter or two about a weekend or short vacation in Dhofar. One of the first, and worst, examples is Suzanne St Albans, who visited in the late 1970s and wrote Where Time Stood Still: A Portrait of Oman (1980). Reminiscent of Jan Morris, she says of Gibalis that “certain freakish customs still linger on among the more primitive tribes” and gives “witchcraft murders” as an example (25). The Jibalis are “wild savages” who “refuse to be absorbed, disciplined or even understood” (153).  She refers to them as “primitive aborigines in the Qara [Mountains]” and “grand, pastoral, cave-dwelling noblemen have never worked with their hands” (152).[10] How would “primitive” people living in caves and herding flocks have survived if they had “never worked with their hands”?

Her writing creates a vision of an ancient, primitive people which erases the reality of the Dhofar region in the late 1970s. St Albans only carefully describes the life of a small percentage of the inhabitants, living in caves and rough dwellings in the mountains. She discusses “witch doctors” but not the many mosques or daily religious practices of Dhofaris (154). In Salalah at this time there was an airport, Holiday Inn, “shops and offices and ultra-modern television centre” and hospital (180) but she never shows Omanis interacting in/ working in these modern surroundings. The “comfortable seaside bungalow” she stays in is owned by British ex-pats who are described but when visiting the “model farm” she discusses the cows; there is no reference to Omanis who work there (163, 164).

Her account of the Dhofar War (1965-1975) shows sympathy only for the British soldiers who fought on the side of the government, which makes sense given that the first ‘thank you’ in her Acknowledgements section is to Brigadier Peter Thwaites. The second is “The Sultan’s Armed Forces provided transport where I wanted to go” (ix). Most of the other people mentioned are also British and military.

Musallim bin Nafl, the first leader of this revolution, is dismissed by the Duchess as “a useless loafer” and a “shiftless, bitter, dissatisfied layabout” but when she visits mountain villages she is appalled at the conditions (155, 156). She never connects the revolution encouraged by Musallim and the desperate poverty endured by his people. The difficulties of daily life she herself witnessed encouraged the mountain people to fight against their government which denied them the basic amenities of modern life such as schools and electricity.

Maria Dekeersmaeker’s The DNA of Salalah, Dhofar: A Tourist Guide (2011) is a guide just for the Dhofar region but it is unfortunately confusing with sentences such as “Horizontalism and parrellism are the trends in urban development of Salalah city. Off roads are the guidelines to the Rub al Khali Desert, the Dhofar Mountain Range and the coastal plains” (153).

The non sequiturs make the book difficult to read. The first section is called “In the Footsteps of the Sultan.” One sub-section entitled “Beloved Mother” about the Sultan’s mother starts with a discussion of falaj, water channels (32). The sub-section “Renaissance Landmarks Education” includes several paragraphs about football (soccer) stadiums and clubs in Salalah (34). The sub-section “Landscape Architecture” is about the Salalah Port and the next sub-section, “The European Connection,” is about the cement factory.

Her discussion of modern Dhofaris makes misleading mistakes to highlight the exoticness, i.e. “real Dhofar men wear a skirt and a t-shirt” (163) with a focus on the rural/ pre-modern. She divides Dhofaris into three groups (Bedu, Jebali and Hadr) and then describes their lives in terms of what animals they take care, as if in 2010 all three groups only herded animals and fished (55-56).

New essay: “’Ayn is for Arab” on “The Arabic Alphabet” website (by Michael Beard)

“The Arabic Alphabet” website (written by Michael Beard, illustrated by Houman Mortazavi) – http://alifbatourguide.com/

‘Ayn is for Arab – http://alifbatourguide.com/the-arabic-alphabet/ayn/

 

‘Ayn is for Arab  –  illustration by Houman Mortazavi   

If we are predisposed to linguistic timidity this is the sound that scares us off. Strictly speaking it is simply the voiced equivalent of ح. But.

I had met Sayed a few months before, in Australia, where he’d tutored me in Arabic. Our lessons foundered on the gagging “ah” sound that has no equivalent in English – or in any other language. “You sound as if you’re choking on spaghetti,” Sayed would say, correcting me. “Just choke. Forget the spaghetti.” He usually gave up after fifteen minutes and tutored me in the wiles of Cairo instead. (Tony Horwitz, Baghdad Without a Map, 72-73)

Even a respected linguist makes it sound a little forbidding: ‘Ayn (that’s its name) is

…the voiced pharyngeal fricative, the most characteristic sound of Arabic . . . the throat muscles are highly constricted with the vocal cords vibrating to produce a sound close to a gag.” (W.M. Thackston (in Introduction to Koranic and Classical Arabic, xvi)

A manual teaching the Urdu script, by a linguist who has evidently read Thackston, says that in Urdu the letter is a simple glottal stop, but that in Arabic it was “a sound made when the throat muscles are highly constricted and the vocal cords vibrate . . .” and adds “similar to the sound made when retching” (Richard Delaney, Beginner’s Urdu Script, 89). William Jones, long ago, in his grammar of Persian (1771) describes the sound in Arabic as “harsh,” and adds, quoting the 17th-century scholar Franciscus Meninski, that it resembles vox vituli matrem vocantis, which I believe means “the sound of a calf calling for its mother.”

Jonathan Raban, in an account of his own study of Arabic, resists the ‘Ayn temptation. It’s still a difficult sound, but it’s not frightening. He even makes it sexy.

continued at: http://alifbatourguide.com/the-arabic-alphabet/ayn/

New essay: “Ẓâ is for Ẓarf” on “The Arabic Alphabet” website (by Michael Beard)

New Essay: “Ṭâ Is For Talisman” on The Arabic Alphabet website

New essay: “Ṣâd is for Zero” on the Arabic alphabet website