Researching and Working on the Arabian Peninsula, Palgrave-Macmillan, 2025
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 text gives clear advice so expats can 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.
conference presentation – “Conducting Research on the Arabian Peninsula: How To Create Effective Interactions,” Middle East Studies Association Annual Conference. Nov. 14, 2024. https://mesana.org/annual-meeting/program
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.
publication – “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
abstract
Although most of Oman’s gross national product is derived from oil and gas products, fishing still plays an important role in providing jobs which create a cash-producing export and help ensure food security. However, there is little current information about the lives of traditional fishermen. This chapter presents the results of extensive interviews conducted in 2020-2021 to explain the daily lives and customs of fishermen in the governorate of Dhofar, in southern Oman. The chapter focuses on two important questions about fishing economics: how much does it cost to catch fish and how does that expense create a social benefit for fishermen, regardless of the money earned from the catch?
My research concentrates on the hakli/ qara groups of tribes who speak Gibali/ Jibbali (also known as Shari/ Śḥeret, a non-written, Modern South Arabian language) as their first language. I have been looking at the theme of generosity, including sharing food, for more than ten years and in this chapter I explain how much a typical day and season of fishing costs a fisherman, as well as how giving away part of every catch creates a benefit that is more than monetary. Using interviews and personal experiences, I explain how the cash outlay for gas, nets, bait, etc. is transformed into social, in addition to economic, capital for fishermen.
(photo by MRR)
Come From Away 
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