This essay is based on the presentation given at the Home/Making Symposium, Concordia University, Montreal on May 12, 2023, with editing suggestions from Elaine Cheasley Paterson and Molly-Claire Gillett
- Introduction
- My Positionality
- Designing a house
- Rooms
- Foyer/ main hallway
- Majlis
- Salle
- Kitchen/ Dining Room
- Bedrooms
- Bathrooms
- Who decorates
- Decorating a house
- Generating Ideas
- Handmade objects
- Conclusion
- Related bibliographies, books, publications and conference presentations
Introduction
Most of the writing about architecture and design on the Arabian Peninsula focuses on either ancient, archeological finds or huge modern edifices. This essay concentrates on the domestic sphere, specifically common practices in decorating a middle-class family house in Dhofar, the southernmost of the 11 governorates in Oman. Dhofar is 99,300 square km and the southern border is the coast of the Indian Ocean. Yemen lies to the west, Saudi Arabia is north, and the other Omani governates are to the east/ north-east.
This paper begins with an overview of how houses are designed, then gives a description of the types of rooms. There is then is a discussion of who decorates the house and how decorations are decided/ agreed on. At the end are several bibliographies on various aspects related to housing on the Arabian Peninsula and links to images of houses.
My Positionality
I lived in Salalah for 19 years, teaching at a small, local university. I taught education, literature and cultural studies classes; my research circled around the question: how do middle-class, Arab, Muslim, tribal, Dhofari people live day to day?
I started research on houses in the summer of 2019 as I was working on my book about foodways. I had to write about how kitchens are situated, designed, decorated and used in Dhofari houses and I found this work so interesting, I started taking notes and asking questions about other rooms in houses, as well as collecting photographs. When the food book was sent to the publisher, I began working on houses full-time by finding and reading texts about houses on the Arabian Peninsula. Between 2020-22, I did targeted interviews and went back through my research notes to compile charts about which houses I had been in and for what reason.
The information presented here is the result of academic research and interviews, as well as simply being friends with Dhofaris and thus being invited by women into their homes for social visits, birthday parties, wedding parties and condolence visits. There are Dhofari houses I have been in more than 30 times and “social visits” include Eid visits, iftar meals at sunset during Ramadan, to meet a new baby, a formal dinner party and to be given a tour of a new house.
With the men in my research group I have been on almost 400 picnics, more than 30 camping trips and over a dozen boat trips. As it is less common for an American woman to be friends with a Dhofari man, I have only been in a few of their houses, for a meal with other men, but eight of the men have sent me photos of their houses and explained the layout.
I also have been invited to see several houses that were being built by Dhofari friends and snuck into more than a dozen houses that were being built in the neighborhoods where I have lived. In addition, I lived in two Dhofari-designed houses within Dhofari neighborhoods for a total of 17 of the 19 years I lived in Oman.
There are no texts which deal with interior design/ room layout in the Dhofar region. As houses are predominately a space for family, the way people know what the inside of other houses look like are ads for rental houses and photos taken on special occasions which circulate through social media. So while I was focusing on houses, I spent a lot of time reviewing what Dhofari friends were posting about houses.
I would like to make clear two limitations of my knowledge. First, all the houses I was in/ saw photos of belonged to middle-class families. Extreme poverty is very rare among Omanis; the government gives subsidies for electricity, water and gas as well as monthly pensions for people in need. There is no homelessness, healthcare is free or with a minimal fee and students with high grades are given free university tuition. I do not know anyone with food scarcity or who could not afford the basics of shelter, clothing, transportation and the ability to host friends, celebrate religious days, hold weddings, etc. On the other side of the scale, I don’t know anyone with extreme wealth, e.g. multiple houses, several cars, ability to pay thousands of dollars for non-essentials such as vacations or jewelry.
Secondly, the houses I describe are Dhofari-designed and decorated. Most of the houses I visited belonged to people who were part of the hakli (Gibali-speaking) tribes. I visited many houses which are rented by expats, but have only included descriptions of the layout if the structures were Dhofari-designed. I have not included descriptions of interior decoration of houses which were lived in by expats or non-Dhofari Omanis.
I have aggregated the evidence I collected into the data presented below, with caveats about personal choices.
Finally, I would also like to be clear that I was visiting houses for many years before I approached design as an academic topic. When I decided to start research on houses, I let my Dhofari friends and informants know this. I asked permission to use descriptions of their houses and did over a dozen interviews. I asked them to please send me photos of their houses (as this was during Covid) if they wanted to. Thus for several houses, I first saw the space as a guest, then as a researcher, then again as a regular guest.
Designing a house
The Dhofar region is considered BWh [arid-desert-hot] in the Köppen-Geiger climate classification. But is often described in non-scientific texts, especially tourist brochures, as tropical or subtropical. From March to the beginning of June is the hot season, with temperatures often in the high 90s with high humidity. In the middle of June, temperatures drop as clouds move in for the South-East khareef (monsoon) season; there is frequent drizzle, occasional rain storms and high seas until the start of September. In the middle of September, the clouds disperse, leaving a green landscape and pleasantly warm weather with blue skies. By December, the grasses have died off, leaving the hills brown and people prepare for the frequent, strong, sand-bearing, north winds from December to March.
This weather pattern means that all houses built in the last 40 years are made of cement block which keeps the wind and drizzle out, but are not energy effective. The houses need air conditioners constantly working to keep cool and the metal and wood window frames and door frames often let in sand and rain during storms.
Dhofari houses are designed by the people who will live in the space so the rooms are built to the families’ specifications.[1] Given than most Dhofaris live in multi-generational clusters of thirty or more family members, this means consulting the wishes of many people. This also means that many people can help contribute. For example a sister might give cash from her salary for building supplies while a brother who does not have a job can do the work of finding the right equipment to rent, bringing workers to and from the job site, supervising, being on hand to answer questions, etc.
The decision to build does not rest solely with the men of a family. Mothers, wives, sisters and daughters are part of decisions relating to the home. Men may not say publicly that they are making decisions based on their relatives’ wishes, but it is expected that the women’s opinions will be consulted. I have heard complaints from Dhofari women that, for example, the kitchen is not well-designed, but among my informants in the hakli group of tribes and in the hakli houses I have visited and seen photos of, the women always had a say in how the house was set up. Several hakli men I know simply handed over the room location and decoration to the women.
Rooms
The most important rooms are the majlis, usually explained as the male or male visitor’s sitting room, and the salle, usually explained as the women’s or family’s sitting room.[2] As the majlis is used more frequently for guests, it is often more showy with a larger TV, elaborate curtains, wall hangings, and gypsum decorations on the ceiling. Care is taken that the two rooms do not have the same color scheme but the spaces are not color-coded for gender in Western terms. For example, the majlis might be light purple or peach while the salle is dark blue or brown.
I think of Dhofari houses as the antithesis of expensive Victorian-era houses in the United Kingdom with many little rooms which each have a separate purpose: the morning room, the seamstress’ room, billiard room, the music room, the library, etc.. In Dhofari houses, there are usually only four types of rooms: sitting room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom and the first three types are furnished with the same pattern of furniture next to the walls and empty space in the middle.
Another way to think about types of rooms is to consider that many middle- and upper-class North American homes have rooms for work, relaxation and/ or exercise such as a home office, craft room, gym, yoga studio, etc. which might be the former bedroom of a child who has moved out. There is a standard trope of a child going to college and his/ her room ‘disappears’ as it has been entirely repurposed.
In Dhofar, while the people who stay in a room might change, the purpose seldom does. For example, three brothers might share a bedroom on the ground floor. In time, an additional story is added and two boys move to an upstairs bedroom while the original room is redone for the oldest boy and his bride. After this couple have a few children, they move to a suite on the first floor and the bedroom is refurbished for a grandparent who cannot manage to walk upstairs.
Foyer/ main hallway
Looking at the front of a Dhofar house, there are almost always two doors. The smaller/ less decorated door leads to the majlis, explained below, and the larger door opens into a large, wide hallway. This hallway, which runs from the front to the back of most houses, is widest by the front door. There is usually no furniture in the hallway except perhaps a tall, rectangular side table pushed against the wall near the door with a mirror above it or nearby.
This is a staging-area that is used only for a few moments of time several times during the day but is necessary given common Dhofar behaviors. A large foyer is needed because there are usually more than five small children living in one house and they can use the space as a play area in hot weather; also, children love to run together to the door when someone knocks (or they are sent to see who it is).
As children like to move in groups, they often stand near the door to look at a person arriving or leaving; for example, younger children often gather in the entrance way when older children are going to school. With a large foyer, there is space for the mom, the children who are going to school and young children to all wait inside where it is cool. Or the space can be used by a group of sisters waiting for a car to take them shopping or visiting relatives so they don’t have to stand outside the house in view of the neighborhood.
In some large, recently-built houses, there is no hallway but a circular, open area with a salle through a wide-open archway, the door to the majlis, the door to the kitchen and the steps leading to upper floors. This space is sometimes big enough for chairs/ a sofa and is used as a play area for children, a pass-through/ staging area and an intermediate/ indeterminate location.
For example, a strange man would come to the majlis through the outside door, but a new bride’s brother who wants to visit might not want to ask her to come to the majlis (where there are other men) and might not be comfortable in the salle (where there are women he doesn’t know and is not related to) but could stand with her in this open space to chat.
Majlis
In some cultures on the Arabian Peninsula, the majlis is strictly male territory but in Dhofar among the hakli tribes, a woman, for example, might sit in the majlis and speak with her uncles or male cousins who have come to visit. Further, the space might be used for children to have lessons with a tutor in the early evening. Women use it to entertain female guests or for wedding parties, during which women usually take over the whole house while men are entertained outside. A husband might sit in the majlis in his wife’s parent’s house as a place to talk to his wife when she is temporarily living at her parent’s house if she is caring for a sick member of her family.
When I visit female Dhofari friends at home, where we sit depends on several factors. If their husbands and/ or brothers are not at home, we sit in the majlis. When I visited one male Dhofari friend, we sat in the majlis, but I went to the salle to eat lunch with the women.
The majlis is usually decorated with sofas or cushions on a low wooden frame surrounding the sides of the room, a few coffee tables, a TV, and sometimes decorations such as photos of the Sultan Qaboos or Sultan Haitham. There is an AC and the walls are always painted to coordinate with the curtains and sofas. Often there is a rug in the (empty) center of the room; the color scheme might be shades of beige, pastels or dark shades of brown, blue, or green.
Majlis always have two doors; the first leads to the outside, so that guests may come and go without moving through or seeing other spaces in the interior of the house. The second door leads to the main hallway of the house and is always closed, if not locked. There is often an open sink, to wash hands before and after eating, and a small toilet/ shower room.
In a very small house, sometimes the majlis is completely repurposed by becoming a bedroom. Then the salle functions as majlis. In one house which was arranged like this, when I was sitting with women and a man entered to meet with the husband, the women and I went to sit in the couple’s bedroom.
There can also be a majlis in the house as well as another majlis in a separate building. This is not common in Dhofar and is usually a marker of a religiously conservative and/ or wealthy family. The outside majlis is usually located close to the wall (sometimes with a doorway cut into the wall) so that visitors do not go anywhere near the house. This majlis often has a large sitting room and bathroom with sometimes a small kitchen (with its own entrance) and/ or a bedroom. When I was with some of the men in the research group visiting a man we knew, we sat in the separate majlis and lunch was brought to us, carried by our friend.
Salle
In the same way that the majlis can be used by women in Dhofar, the salle can be used by men who are not in the family, for example older men who are close, long-term neighbors might sit with women in the salle if there are no men in the house to entertain them.
The salle is always at the front of the house, close to but usually not visible from the front door. The room has three sides, often with windows to the front and side of the house, the side to the front hallway completely open, with a blank back wall. Like the majlis, it is usually decorated with sofas or cushions on a low wooden frame surrounding the sides of the room, a few coffee tables, a TV, and decorative elements such as vases. The bathroom area might be attached to the salle or further down the main hallway of the house.
Although the norm in Dhofar is for a house to have one majlis and one salle, some larger houses have a series of rooms, i.e., a formal salle at the front of the house and then a (usually less formal) salle further inside. Sometimes also a few sofas are placed upstairs in an open area at the head of the stairs (out of sight of the front door) for family members only.
A salle can be a place for siblings to watch horror movies at 1am, somber when the house is in mourning and women come to pay condolence visits, joyful for a graduation celebration, intimate when sisters come to visit and share all the family news, loud when the children are playing, and welcoming for neighbors and guests. The salle is the center of a Dhofari house.
This could be seen as valid for a North American family as well, i.e., someone in Wisconsin might say that the family room is the heart of the house, yet North Americans may also use different home spaces. They might gather in the kitchen or dining room for a meal; go to the den, basement or spare bedroom to watch TV; sit in the living room for formal visits and send children to their bedrooms to play with toys. All of those activities would take place in the salle of a Dhofari house.
Kitchen/ Dining Room
The kitchen is located to the side or back of the house; in newer houses it has its own entrance used by family members if there is parking near that entrance, as well as those who don’t live in the house, for example people bringing in supplies such as bags of groceries and/ or jugs of water for water dispensers. Like bathrooms, kitchens have tiled walls and floors, usually in shades of grey, beige or brown. There are florescent tube lights, a ceiling fan and an extractor fan, but usually not AC. If there is a window (most often over the sink) it has opaque glass.
Often there are long, high counters along one or two walls, with shelving underneath and cupboards above. The below-counter cupboards, as well as the stove, fridge and washing machine are set slightly above floor-level on platforms so that the floor can be cleaned by mopping/ sluicing. Usually the gas canisters for the stoves are located outside the house, next to the kitchen door, with a small hole drilled in the cement wall to bring the gas pipe to the stove/ oven.
As it is common to have thirty or more people (from different generations) in one house, kitchens are big enough to make large meals. Like most rooms, everything is placed around the sides of the room. Sometimes there is a table, but often you can find an empty area in the middle of the room that is five feet square or larger. This is so a lot of women can work together for parties and also because some cooking is done on the floor. For example, large pots of meat are sometimes cooked on gas rings set on the floor because it is easier to stir from a standing position than trying to reach into a pot set on the stovetop. Some kinds of bread are cooked using small gas burners set on the floor.
Kitchens are utilitarian; pretty trays might be leaned against the back-splash or there might be a vase to hold wooden spoons, etc., but kitchens are seldom decorated or set up as welcoming/ comforting spaces in which to sit and relax.
As soon as you walk in, it’s easy to visually orient yourself; often the cupboards have glass fronts so you can see inside them. Most families will have items for hosting in sight and easy to reach: several sets of teacups and saucers, tea and coffee pots, carafes, glass bowls or plates. There are usually several trays as almost all food, drinks and eating utensils, plates, cups, etc. are moved on trays, not carried by hand
Larger and newer houses may have small suites for each married son. This will usually consist of a bedroom with an attached bathroom and a sitting room which might have a galley kitchen with a small sink and microwave so they can make tea and simple meals for themselves. Thus, there will be one large kitchen for a house, with perhaps a few smaller mini-kitchens for couples.
Bedrooms
If the house has one floor, bedrooms are at the back of the house, usually behind the kitchen. In a two- or three-story house there are often one or two bedrooms on the ground floor for older and senior relatives with the rest of the bedrooms on the upper floors.
There is usually a bed with matching nightstands and large wardrobes, as well as a sofa or padded chairs and coffee table. Sometimes there is a desk and chair if the inhabitant is school-age. I have never seen a built-in closet; everything is stored on or in shelving units or cupboards.
In addition to the overhead, usually fluorescent, lights, bedrooms often have a sconce (wall light) with a low-watt or colored bulb so, if the room is shared, one person can move around and/ or parents can look in on children without turning on the bright overhead lights. There is always a fan and AC.
It is very common for the upper stories to have a series of suites, meaning a door on the main corridor which leads to a small foyer space with three or four doors: two rooms and a bathroom, perhaps a storage room. This configuration can be easily changed as needed. For example, the two rooms might be used as a bedroom and a sitting room for a newly married couple or single older relative; a shared bedroom and a study/ play room for several children; or two shared bedrooms with a variety of configurations such as younger children in one room with an older child in the other or a married couple in one room, children in the other, etc. If the second room is used as a sitting room, there is often a small kitchen area.
If a man has more than one wife in the same house, each suite will be considered as belonging to the wife and the husband will move between the suites. If his second wife is in another house, he will move between houses as, in Islam, a man should spend equal time with each wife. In old-age or in times of sickness, an older man might sleep alone in what was a room for guests.
Sometimes a Dhofari woman will stay in her parent’s house and her husband will move in with her. This doesn’t happen often; usually it occurs when the husband works close to his wife’s family house, if she is the only daughter or her mother has no sons living with her.
Bathrooms
For some houses built in the mountains in the 1980s and before, the bathroom can be a small, separate building. In this case it is a low ceilinged, tiled space with a toilet, sink, shower and washing machine.
Since the 1980s, bathrooms are within the house, usually rectangular and built with the narrow end on an outside wall or lightwell to allow for the window and extractor fan. They usually have tiled walls and floors with an open design (e.g. no interior walls such as a low partition to screen the toilet) with a pedestal sink or sink on a counter with empty space beneath and a shelving unit next to the wall. The sink is always closest to the door.
The shower area usually does not have a curtain and is marked off with a slightly lowered floor with a drain. Some have tiled steps along one side. Bathtubs are rare; if there is one, it usually has a seat. The steps and seat are for the ritual washing before Muslim prayers during which face, hands and feet must be cleaned.
Bathrooms in the family/ private area of the house are often plainly decorated and are built open-plan for one person to use at a time, unless it is a parent helping a small child. Some North American bathrooms are set up with the toilet half-hidden behind a low wall and shower curtains so that two people might use the room at the same time but I have not heard of that in Dhofar. For unmarried inhabitants, if there is not a bathroom attached to the bedroom, there is one nearby.
The guest bathroom that is attached to or near the majlis and salle often has a space with one or more sinks, then there is an inner door which leads to a small room with a toilet, shower and sink so that guests might wash their hands while the toilet/ shower room is in use. These rooms are usually nicely appointed with fancy faucets and attractive tiles.
Who decorates
Given that most Dhofaris live in multi-generational clusters of thirty or more family members, interior design means consulting the wishes of many people. Usually older family members have a more decisive say but different people can be in control of different areas. For example, the senior woman might be in charge of decorating the kitchen, the senior man might choose the colors of the main sitting room, while a sister might design the room for her brother and his new wife. If there is one person in the family who is known for their flair, they might be given responsibility for the salle, main hallway and majlis. Adults usually decorate their own bedrooms.
Some Dhofari women are frustrated that they don’t have a say in designing and decorating but this is often a function of age and tribe. In the hakli families I know mothers, sisters, wives and/or daughters are always consulted or had design control over the parts of houses they lived in and used daily, i.e., salle, kitchen and bedroom.
However, unmarried women in their teens or early twenties might not be consulted, except for the color choices in their rooms, because of age and the expectation that they will not stay in the house for long given that almost all women move to their husband’s house when married.
When a man is getting married, he is either given a new room or his room is completely redone: re-painted, new furniture, new lighting and often a new dropped or decorated ceiling. This room, out of respect for whoever decorated it, should not be changed for several years, so a woman might not have power over her living space until she is in her late twenties or thirties, but from then on, the decorating is made in consultation with her or left entirely up to her.
Decorating a house
Houses are decorated when they are new or when the family moves in. Usually, a family will bring all new furniture as the old furniture is given away. Refurbishment, new furniture and/ or painting, usually takes place before the two Eids (Muslim holidays) and/ or before a wedding.
Generating Ideas
Getting design ideas for the exterior of houses is simple, one only has to drive around and see what other people have done. But there are not many chances to get design ideas about interior spaces beyond a few, large furnishing stores that have opened in the past few years. Dhofaris will visit relative’s houses and might stay in hotels or vacation rentals, but there are limited opportunities to see a wide variety of interior styles.
Dhofaris might post photos of a newly decorated room on social media and people who manage rental houses might post photos of interiors but there is, for example, no Omani equivalent of Zillow or Redfin with photos of the inside of millions of homes.
On the other hand, there are many carpenters, iron-mongers and tailors so that Dhofaris are not limited to furniture and curtains they find in stores. As with designing the house, people can take a photo or hand-drawn sketch to a workshop and have beds, wardrobes, sofas, chairs, drapes, etc. made to their specifications.
Handmade objects
In North America, people often design their houses with personal items which reflect their travels, accomplishments and interests. But in a majlis or salle, there are usually few or no signs of the individuals who live in the house such as photos, books, souvenirs or knickknacks. The window might be decorated with five kinds of fabric, tassels, pull-backs, swags and ruffles, but you won’t be able to tell very much about the family.
While many Dhofaris have an interest in design per se, it is usually manifested in the design of clothes and making of perfumes, not in creating objects that would be on display such as quilts, crocheted afghans/ throws, needlepoint cushions and paintings. The one handmade object which is found is a majmar, a small clay, footed bowl which is used to hold a lit piece of charcoal with a piece of frankincense. The burning tree sap produces clouds of perfumed smoke which create a lovely fragrance in the house.
Conclusion
Most Dhofaris follow the principle of “people, not things.” When visiting a hakli at home, the house itself is never the focus of the conversation. If it’s a new house, there will be compliments and a short discussion about where and how items were bought but that is only a few moments but the important most element of owning a house is to create a comfortable place for one’s family to gather.
Risse – bibliographies, essays and images for Houseways
main webpages on research about houses:
references list: Selected references related to Houseways in Southern Oman, Oct. 2022
images:
- Houseways: House plans
- Houseways: House construction, part 1
- Houseways: House Construction, part 2
- Photos of houses in the Salalah area
Risse – publications – books
- Researching and Working on the Arabian Peninsula: Creating Effective Interactions – Palgrave Macmillan, 2025 – 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, anthropologists, 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 anthropology, history, literature, political science and travel writing, this text gives clear advice so long- and short-term visitors 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 guides aimed at the casual tourists and academic texts on narrowly defined topics.
- Houseways in Southern Oman. Routledge, 2023 – https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003270317/houseways-southern-oman-marielle-risse?context=ubx&refId=df5ff522-56da-4ff0-a4c0-ee11312c71c4
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. 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- https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003015987/foodways-southern-oman-marielle-risse?context=ubx&refId=a58a1770-03ad-4d84-9675-f6c94ec1d1cb
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. Dr. Risse connects what is consumed to themes such as land usage, gender, age, purity, privacy and generosity. She 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 – https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-17004-2
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.
Risse – publications
“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.
“Cultural Refraction: Using Travel Writing, Anthropology and Fiction to Understand the Culture of Southern Arabia,” Interdisciplinary Humanities 26:1, 2009: 63-78.
Risse – conference presentations
“Conducting Research on the Arabian Peninsula: Creating Effective Interactions,” Middle East Studies Association Annual Conference. Upcoming, Nov. 11-15, 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
“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.
“Female, Femininity, Male and Masculinity in the Gibali-speaking Tribes of Southern Oman.” The Gulf Research Conference, Cambridge University. August 2, 2017.
“‘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.
“‘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.
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[1] To help pay for the building costs, the house might be rented out for a few years before the owner moves in. Also, if a family moves into a new house, they may give their previous one to a relative.
[2] Salle is pronounced ‘sall-la,’ not as the French, ‘sall.’
Practicalities: Managing a Short Research Trip to the Arabian Peninsula
Come From Away 
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