Tag: Food

Reflections on Ethnographic Work: Being Safe and Secure

One aspect of talking to expats is that if I intimated that something they did might not be safe in my opinion, my advice often had to be negated by them pointing out my actions were unsafe, particularly me going camping with only Omani men. This makes me think of how to define “safe” in terms of my life in Oman. On one hand, I camped with men I had known for years and I had usually met members of their family: brothers, cousins, parents, wives and children. On the other hand, I frequently felt insecure and lost. I was constantly telling myself to trust them, trust the process and that, if nothing else, I was going to have a useful learning experience. “Useful,” not necessarily fun or easy.

One Wednesday night, I got phone call at 9pm. It was hard to hear with the sound of wind and waves in the background. A group of the research guys were camping at a beach far from town and they had decided I should come. I wrote out what they wanted me to bring (water, more water and wood), hung up and started prepping. I had to proctor an exam at 8am, which meant getting up, going to work, stopping at store on the way home while I was still in regular clothes, putting everything in the car, buying drive-through McDonalds for lunch, then lots of driving.  

I got to the beach around 4pm. We talked, then they decided that they would take me for a short boat ride. This was not “How are you feeling?,” “Would you like a boat ride?” or “What have you eaten today, as in what are the chances you will throw up if we go out in the boat?’ No, it was: “Now you will go in the boat.”

So, I changed into boat clothes and out we went. It was very nice; the sea was calm and it was lovely to see the shore and hills… but wait. We appeared to be stopping. They were maneuvering a large barrel full of fishing line with many 4 inch hooks imbedded in soft foam to the edge of the boat. Oh, it was a curtain met, a long, strong fishing line to which plastic laundry soap bottles are tied at intervals so it didn’t sink and every 6 feet of so, a short line going down with a hook which they baited with a sardine (like the “icicles” type of Christmas lights which have a long horizontal line with short verticals going down). 

Hooking sardines and tossing the line out took over an hour. The sun sank lower, it got colder, they didn’t let me help so I watched the ocean, shore and seabirds trying not to think about being cold. Then we drove off in the direction opposite camp. I wanted to say that I wanted to go back, but I stayed quiet. If we were driving over to the other side of the bay, they must have a reason.

As the guy who was steering the boat turned off the motor, I realized we were going to a stop next to a fish-trap buoy. He had driven to one of his “boxes” (fish traps) which was very close to shore, meaning it probably had lobsters and since they know I like lobsters, he was deliberately going to the box most likely to have them for my sake (they think lobsters are so-so and would much rather have fish). And, yes, the trap had 8 large lobsters but no fish.

We drove back to shore and moved our camp to up to the top of small headland with a small bay to one side and the large bay (about 2km across) on the other. There were no lights visible so the sky was full of stars. They made a dinner of white rice, a kind of chutney made from various cooked vegetables and lobster taken out of the shell and cooked directly on rocks heated by coals. 

As the rice was cooking, one of the guys took a small shark they had caught earlier in the day and prepped it for drying. He cut it open, took out the guts, then cut the meat into long, thin strips which are all attached to the back of the head so it looked sort of like an octopus (or a small alien from the movie Alien). This is tossed over a rope to dry in the sun for a few days, then eaten. I saw the man cutting the shark, but hadn’t realized he had had put it on a rope that was tied between my truck and their truck.

After dinner, I glanced over at my truck and saw something white, taller than a cat and odd-shaped underneath it. This thing was less than 10 feet away from me so I called the name of the guy who was sitting closest to me, about 6 feet away.

He did not respond, so I said his name again. He said, “fox.” I said fearfully, “that is not a fox” as I have never seen a fox come so close to humans and the thing seemed to be square-shaped. I heard him shift, then his phone light shone on exactly the place I was looking. It was a fox whose hair for some reason glowed white in the darkness and it was standing at an angle so I could see the side of its body and hindquarters, with its tail was wrapped around its body so it looked like a square.

The point of this story is that when I turned back around, I realized that I had been blocking his view. The research guy heard me say his name, saw me looking back towards my truck and said, “fox” without knowing why I was saying his name or what I was looking at. He had instantly put together from how my head was turned that I was looking at the area below where the drying shark meat was hung and the anxiety in my voice meant there was something I could not understand – so the answer had to be “fox.” When I said, “that is not a fox,” he moved over and picked up his phone to show me that, with no visual or sound cues, he knew what it was better than me, the person who was staring at the fox.

So sometimes I felt cold, confused, tired or worried and yet, at the same time, always secure.

Reflections on Ethnographic Work – Trying to Make Sense of Words and Actions

Two poems for courage: “Against Hesitation” by Charles Rafferty and “Thalassa” by Louis MacNeice

Presentation – “Windguru and Other Gurus: Fishing off the Coast of Dhofar, Oman”

Predator Anthropologists, Anthropologist Predators: Anthropological Metaphors in Popular Movies

photo by Hussein Baomar

Conference presentation on fishing off the coast of Dhofar, Oman

I am happy to announce that I will be presenting “Windguru and Other Gurus: Fishing off the Coast of Dhofar, Oman” for the Navigating the Transcultural Indian Ocean: Texts and Practices in Contact Conference, sponsored by the Rutter Project, June 5, 2024.

Research on Fishing in Dhofar

Foodways: Researching Fishing Practices in Dhofar and Selected Bibliographies

– طرق الطعام : بحث في ممارسات الصيد في ظفار وببليوجرافيات مختارة – Foodways: Researching Fishing Practices in Dhofar (in Arabic) and Selected Bibliographies

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: Expat Workers and Issues of Payment (part 4 of 4)

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: Deciding to Hire Expat Workers (part 1 of 4)

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: Situating Expat Workers (part 2 of 4)

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: Expat Workers and Reciprocity (part 3 of 4)

Overview

By chance in the past few weeks I have read several articles about labor and migration on the Arabian Peninsula such as

  • Gardner, Andrew and Sharon Nagy. (2008). “Introduction: New Ethnographic Fieldwork Among Migrants, Residents and Citizens in the Arab States of the Gulf.” City and Society 20.1: 1-4.
  • Nagy, Sharon. (1998). “‘This Time I Think I’ll Try a Filipina’: Global and Local Influences on Relations Between Foreign Household Workers and Their Employers in Doha, Qatar.” City and Society 10: 83-103.
  • Sarmadi, Behzad. (2013). “‘Bachelor’ in the City: Urban Transformation and Matter Out of Place in Dubai.” Journal of Arabian Studies 3: 196-214.

There are lots of numbers, data sets, opinions and ideas in these texts – but no sense of what it’s like to interact with expat workers. There is ethnographic work with and about them, but nothing about the writer’s personal economic exchanges: how to hire, discuss and pay wages, decide work load, etc. This isn’t a fault of the articles which have different objectives, but reading these texts made me reflect on my connections to other expat workers, how I manage them and how they manage me.

This essay will talk about issues with payment. [The information about wages and dates are from monthly lists of expenses that I have kept since I moved to Dhofar. 1 Omani Riyal is about $2.40; there are 1000 baisa in one Riyal so the 500 baisa bill is worth about $1.20.]

***************

In the previous essays I gave examples of me hiring other expats to work for me. In this essay I want to write about some of the bumps along the way. First was my almost complete ignorance about how to hire/ manage people. When a friend told me that I should have someone clean my house, I thought it was a great idea but was not sure about the protocols.

I thought about the examples I knew from my parents and what I would want if someone hired me. From watching my parents interact with people who they hired to help cut bush and work in their gardens, I knew that I should agree on a price beforehand, pay in cash promptly and always have drinks (water/ juice/ soda) on hand.

Over the years, my father made several joking comments to me wondering what his short, small cleaning lady was doing with all the pairs of size 13 shoes he left for her, so I learned that if you have anything to throw away, leave it clean and neatly arranged in a place for the cleaning person to take if they want. And I hated having someone watch over me if I was trying to work, so I was determined to leave the person alone to work in peace.

I had only hired movers on my own before moving to Oman (paid in cash and given lots of soda) so I tried to assimilate these lessons as I started to navigate labor practices in my daily life with N (manager at a housing compound), M (car-cleaner) and T (house cleaner).

When I moved to a house in a small compound, the manager (N) asked for a small salary for cleaning my car, sweeping the sidewalks and watering the garden. This all went well until one day I noticed that none of the work was being done, so I walked over to N’s room to see what was going on. He was sitting on the bench outside his door and told me that he was supposed to go home that week. It was the time for his yearly free trip home but the company that hired him was stalling, refusing to pay for the ticket. He was not going to do any work as it was his right to go home for his vacation. I have never crossed a picket line in my life and this was clearly a protest strike so it was incumbent on me to stand in solidarity. I did the sweeping and watering (and kept paying his salary) until he was able to go home.

After cleaning my car for a few months, M told me (in an English sentence he had memorized) that his daughter was getting married and he needed an extra month’s salary. I was startled but realized that the 10 Omani Riyal was not that important to me, but that amount was important to him. So I handed it over. In the nine years he worked for me, he came several more times with requests and I always said yes.

T cleaned my house for 14 1/2 years. After she had worked for me for 4 years, she told me that her son was at the age to start school. Since she was an expat, she would have to pay for a private school and she needed the fees up-front. She needed the equivalent of 5 months’ salary that week then, she said, she would work for the coming 5 months without pay.

I did not want to hand over all that money. First it would require me taking some cash out of savings and forgoing some items I had wanted to buy that month. Second, it meant trusting that she would, in fact, show up for the next 5 months. Plus, I knew I would feel guilty about her working without pay and would leave some cash for every week so there would be an extra cost for me.

I briefly thought of going to the school myself, to arrange for a monthly payment plan that I would handle. But doing that would infantilize her; I should either give the cash outright or refuse. It was a moment in which my ideals and beliefs confronted everyday-life; the request got right to the core of who I thought I was and what I thought about my place in the world.

On one hand, I couldn’t know for certain that money was for school fees, but if it was for school and I didn’t help her, her son might lose the chance to get an education. As a teacher, I felt I had to respect someone’s efforts to help her child learn. So, I gave her the money. She worked for 5 months with no salary, with me leaving her a few Riyal every week.

Two years later, she again asked for an advance. She wanted to buy a car and needed 4 months’ salary ahead of time. Having a car would make her life immeasurably easier because she would not have to depend on taxis. I agreed.

When Covid hit, I kept paying her salary (as did all the other expats I know who have hired someone to help them clean), but asked her not to come to my house. When it became clear that the disease was spread through direct contact; she and I created a new schedule so that I was always out of the house for an hour before and after she came.

Here is a final example to illustrate the question of how much I am/ should be responsible for those who work for me.

I sort my trash four ways. Soda cans get put in a bag to be set next to dumpsters for people to take for recycling. Non-meat food waste gets composted. Anything that is usable or edible is set to the left side of my front door for the cleaning person or gardener to take if they want and other trash is put in biodegradable bags with the tops tied shut to be thrown out.

One day I had to run back home from work while T (the woman who cleans my house) was still working. As I came up the stairs, I realized that she had opened the trash bags, taken out items I had tossed and put them into other bags for her to take home. The things I had thrown out which she wanted were foodstuff that were older than their “best before” date. I stood on the steps and thought: What do I do about this? How much am I my sister’s keeper?

I asked T to come out to the stairs, pointed to the things she had set aside and said, “not good to eat.” She nodded and said that she would throw them out, but I don’t know if she did.

How long you can use food or medicine after it has passed its sell by/ expired date is something reasonable people can disagree about. My point of view is never to use anything after that date because to reach Salalah, most items are in transit for a long time in trucks that are not temperature-controlled. I often open food that should still be good to find that it is spoiled and I have had enough cases of food poisoning to be wary. I try to use whatever I buy before the “best before” date, but if something expires, I toss it. I know others disagree with me and use medicine weeks or months after the recommended date printed on the package.

My choices were to tell T not to open the trash bags, not do anything or make sure that the expired things were not useable in some way.

Telling her not to open trash bags didn’t really make sense. I have learned from teaching to never say something that you can’t back up and I am almost never at home when she cleans so I cannot tell what she was doing.

To let her decide for herself raised the issue that she might not be able to read/ understand “sell-by” dates. On the other hand, she might understand but was willing to try expired food and medicine as a way to save money.

By tossing out the food and medicine myself, I would be doing what I thought was right but perhaps wasting perfectly usable items. I finally decided to off-the-cuff evaluate what I put in my trash. Now I throw expired items that I think should not be eaten away myself, anything else I leave for T to make her own decisions about.

For me, the through-line in all of these cases is my uncertainty; I didn’t know then and don’t know now if I did the right thing. Being a “boss” is not something I had experience with before I moved here. From the outside, I might look like a confident American expat, but I feel like I am slowly finding my way in the dark, making mistakes and constantly wondering if I am misunderstanding the situation.

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: Making Adjustments for Positive Multi-Cultural Exchanges/ Events

Ethnography: Conversations about Men/ Masculinity, part 1

Using Cultural Understandings to Improve Teaching, part 1

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: (Not) Asking Questions

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: What is Missing and What Changes

I recently read two ethnographic texts about the Arabian Peninsula and was troubled that neither author articulated how their perceptions of the people of who they were studying (or themselves) were changed by their months in-country and years of writing.

The learning curve was perfectly flat – i.e. my conception of the project was X and this is what I found – without any mention of what might have been misunderstood or missed. I am not sure if the years of writing smoothed out the research process so that it appears seamless, or perhaps the researchers did not want to publicize or dwell on lacunas. But I don’t think any anthropological work can ever be complete or finished and it’s better to be clear about what changed/ what’s not there/ what questions weren’t asked, etc. I also think it’s important for authors to reflect on how they themselves have changed.

I wrote a book about food (Foodways in Southern Oman, 2021) and weeks after it was at the publisher I realized I had not been clear on the issue of Dhofaris not talking while they are eating. I was having dinner with someone who would say half a sentence, take a bit of food, chew carefully, then finish the sentence. This meant no one else could talk and, at the end of the meal, this person left one bite on their plate and talked on for 20 minutes as no one could leave the table until everyone was done eating. As I was thinking about their actions, I realized that this kind of conversation-hijacking doesn’t happen in Oman.

I had missed a whole series of interrelated food/ dialog practices and understandings. In Dhofar, there is an understanding that being upset can be physically harmful; for example, children (who can’t yet control themselves) should not be allowed to cry. Another example of this belief is that no one should say or do anything distressing while eating. There should be either no conversation or light/ polite/ general talk.

If someone wants to talk, they can – but side conversations are fine and people are concentrating on the food. When a person is done, they will usually stand up to wash their hands. If someone has something important to say, they will not do it during a meal.

In my book, I didn’t include the insight that a whole series of actions/ tropes which are normal in American culture, such as loud arguments at the dinner table (perhaps with screaming, throwing things or stomping away) are very rare in Dhofar. As is someone saying something dramatic, then calmly drinking or eating while everyone else is in an uproar. Eating should be done in a peaceful atmosphere and the Dhofari way to show fury at the dinner table is usually to not eat and not talk.

And as I read the two ethnographic texts about the Arabian Peninsula and wondered at how the authors didn’t change, I questioned how I would make that articulation about myself. How have I been changed by years of working with one group of tribes in Dhofar?

I would say that I am more patient, although this is not the perception of the men in my research group. And I have adapted the belief from the Dhofari people I know that you should frame learning that a friend is untrustworthy as positive. Even if someone you have been friends with for years betrays you, you should be glad that you finally know understand that person’s character.

I realized I had internalized this belief when I watched the last episode of the long-running series Endeavor. The main character (Morse) and his supervisor/ mentor (Thursday) are investigating the death of drug-dealer and trying to find the body of a long-dead boy. Their work is complicated by the impending marriage of Thursday’s daughter, Joan, to another policeman. Thursday is warned that if he continues to search for the culprits, Joan might be put in danger and Morse is torn between finally telling Joan that he loves her and staying stoic.

At the end, Morse figures out that Thursday is connected to a murder; his long-trusted and respected mentor is revealed as a self-serving hypocritic. Quoting Harry IV, Morse breaks with Thursday as Prince Hal did with Falstaff and, in their final scene, rejects Thursday’s attempt to regain their previous friendship when Thursday refers to Morse by his first name. As it’s clear that they will never speak to each other again, it’s a startling end to nine seasons of watching their camaraderie grow and deepen.

My reaction to Morse’s brush off of Thursday’s last effort at reconciliation was thinking, “oh, it’s a good thing that Morse never told Joan he loved her as there is obviously a flaw in the character of that family and who knows when it would have shown up in Joan.” Then I thought, “that’s the POV of the people I do research with.”

It was an interesting moment as I realized that I should have felt sorry for Morse [he lost his mentor and the woman he loved!] but I have adopted another POV over the years of living in Dhofar. When I have gone to a Dhofari friend with a tale of “this person did this awful thing,” I have gotten two reactions. One is, “That’s good! Now you know how that person is” and “Why you are upset when you already knew that person was bad?”

I joked in my first book about how there is no bad news – it’s like living in Voltaire’s Candide without the skepticism. Leibniz and his phrase “the best of all possible worlds” would be at home in the tribes I work with as the Dhofaris in my research group strive to find a positive outcome from negative events.

The framework is that all knowledge is beneficial. If someone revels themselves to be dishonest, this is a good thing because now you can avoid them. Perhaps you might have continued to be friends with them for years without knowing their true personality, unwittingly trusting a misleading and deceitful person. Or perhaps they might have tried to trick you or someone else out of large sums of money or something important. So you should celebrate the fact that you have learned that they are not good. You should not focus on the pain of this betrayal, but on the happiness of avoiding any further (perhaps worse) treachery.

Reflections on Ethnographic Research – Getting it Wrong

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: Making Adjustments for Positive Multi-Cultural Exchanges/ Events

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: (Not) Asking Questions

Ethnography: Conversations about Men/ Masculinity, part 1

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: Changes within Cultures

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: Getting it Wrong

I have been looking at collections of ethnographic essays and several essays show in up most or all texts: Bohannan’s “Shakespeare in the Bush” (1966), Lee’s “Eating Christmas in the Kalahari” (1969) and Miner’s “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema” (1956). There is another essay that is often included, Geertz’s “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight” (1972). In looking over these 4 essays, I wondered, why are these the most widely anthologized?

What they have in common is that in Bohannan’s, Lee’s and Geertz’s essays, the first-person authors are revealed to be completely wrong in an amusing and memorable fashion. In Miner’s essay it is the reader who learns that they were wrong as the essay is set up to de-familiarize American culture (Nacirema = American).

In Bohannan’s, Lee’s and Geertz’s texts, the first-person narrator starts out facing a common field-work task and ends up being the one out of control. Bohannan wants to explain Hamlet to a group of interlocutors she has been gathering stories from, but she is taught the true meaning of the play. Lee wants to get a fat bull to give his interlocutors a feast but, although he gets the largest animal he can find, he is accused of being stingy. Geertz and his wife are trying to integrate into their new research environment, a small village in Bali. They succeed not by their academic reasonings but because they run away when police raid a cock fight. Fleeing in terror and ending up in a stranger’s courtyard pretending to drink tea is what gets them included in village life.

Bohannan, Lee and Geertz confidently set out on their paths, get linguistically/ culturally/ physically lost but end up with valuable insights that help them understand the cultures they are studying. To me, they are popular for the same reason The Wizard of Oz, Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland and the new Super Mario Brother’s Movie are popular. It’s fun to watch someone else live through a tornado/ drop down a rabbit hole/ fall into a tunnel, arrive in a foreign county and slowly learn the ropes.

And I think there is something hopeful and reassuring in hundreds of anthropology professors assigning these essays over the last 50-odd years. Reading them is a reminder that things can go very wrong in fieldwork and still turn out ok. They are anthropological equivalent of the Tolkien quote:

It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going, because they were holding on to something.

Brief, non-life-threatening panic is useful, like the concept that nightmares aren’t telling you something terrible will happen, but simply trying to get your attention. And it’s helpful that all three essays highlight the randomness of the panic in that the three narrators felt confident in what they were doing until, suddenly, they were lost. That’s exactly how ethnographic research goes; the panic can come at any time.

A few months ago, I brought food for a meeting with the research guys. I usually bring the firewood and drinks as I don’t cook, but there is one restaurant in town that is trusted so I try to bring dinner now and then.

Like Lee, I was happy to know that I had managed to bring good food for people who have been helping me with my research for years. I unpacked the hummus, salads, bread and plates of grilled meats with pride. One of the men motioned me to put one of the plates of meat back into a cooler, saying “there is enough.” I knew this was in keeping with their normal practice of not setting all the food out as untouched food could be given to other people if not needed. It’s better to have everyone eat from one or two plates which are picked clean than have three or four half-eaten plates with the leftovers thrown out for animals.

We started to eat and, after a while I noticed that the plates were emptying faster than I had anticipated. Soon, there were only scraps left on table. I looked at the man I know best (X) and he glared at me. I felt horrible. I had failed. I had not provided enough food. I was miserly. What a stupid mistake to not bring enough! I glanced again at X and he glared at me again. I was a huge disappointment! I wanted to sink into the sand.

Then I reflected – wait, these guys do not care about food! I wrote an entire book about these men do not care about food. They can handle being hungry for hours; they take pride in their self-control. And they had all eaten at least some meat; no one was starving. So why was X glaring at me?

I looked at X for a third time and he glanced over at the cooler. Suddenly I remembered, I had put an extra plate in the cooler to save for a late comer. So I reached over, opened the cooler, pulled out the plate, took off the tin-foil and set it in the middle of the mat. Everyone dived in.

Ah-ha! The issue was NOT that I had not brought enough dinner but that I had not offered all that I had. Given the importance of self-control in their cultures, they were not going to ask me to give them more food. I brought the meal, so I needed to be the one to offer it. Since I was not offering the last plate, perhaps I wanted to keep that food for myself. And they were not going to lose their dignity by asking for it.

X wasn’t glaring because I had underestimated how much to buy but because I was acting like a miser. Not buying enough is ok; selfishness and stupidity are not ok. I should have remembered the last plate and immediately set it out.

A few weeks later, I checked my insight with X and he agreed with my understanding. He thought maybe I had forgotten the extra plate, but he wasn’t sure, and he had to leave the decision up to me. Then I ran this whole story by another research guy who was not there that night and got the same reaction: no one would care if I didn’t provide as much as everyone wanted to eat, but to have food in the cooler and not share it – that was bad behavior.

The event made me think of Lee’s essay and Alice playing croquet with flamingos. It’s fun to read about other people’s moments of confusion and frustration, and so difficult to live through those moments yourself.

(photo by S. B.)

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: Claiming Knowledge and Shifting Perceptions

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: What is Missing and What Changes

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: (Not) Asking Questions

Reflections on Ethnographic Work: Behaving Badly and Defending Grandpa

Reflections on Ethnographic Work: Shopping, Safety and Maneval’s New Islamic Urbanism (2019)

Donaldson’s article on “Units of Counting” in Oman

I recently read a great article about Oman:

Donaldson, William. 1994. “Units of Counting and Aggregation in Omani Arabic.” Journal of Semitic Studies 39: 87-96. https://doi.org/10.1093/jss/XXXIX.1.87

The same author also wrote:

  • Donaldson, William. 1979. Fishing and Fish Marketing in Northern Oman: A Case Study of Artisanal Fisheries Development. Doctoral thesis, Durham University.
  • Donaldson, William. 2008. “Enterprise and Innovation in an Indigenous Fishery: The Case of the Sultanate of Oman.” Development and Change 11: 479-95.

I think it is so interesting when a researcher gives a clear overview of a small aspect of a culture. I ran into the issue of how to count items when I was doing work on fishing a few years ago. At that time I noted:

Oman uses the metric system but different measuring systems are used in fishing. Boats are ordered by ‘feet,’ petrol is measured by ‘drum’ (8 Omani Riyal for a standard 30-liter petrol can), engine power is by ‘horsepower,’ and the radius of circular sardine nets is by dhirae (‘arm’ in Arabic, from the inside, centre point of right elbow to tip of middle finger on right hand). The depth of water, the size of fish boxes (traps) and the height of a curtain nets is by ba’ (from furthest edge of left shoulder to tip of middle finger on right hand).

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: Making Adjustments for Positive Multi-Cultural Exchanges/ Events

(photo by S. B.)

For the first few years I was in Oman, I often went on picnics with mixed groups of Omanis and expats but that gradually stopped as I got frustrated with what I perceived to be situations in which the Omanis were doing all/ most of the work. I started having picnics with just the research guys and the few times I brought an expat, I ended up frustrated or embarrassed by expat behavior such as showing up empty-handed, sitting passively, dominating the conversation and not showing gratitude.

But a dear friend, T, was coming for a short visit and I was sure that she had the temperament to enjoy and appreciate a beach picnic, so I got in touch with the guys. This started a series of adjustments on all sides which illustrate the importance of compromise in effective inter-cultural communications/ interactions.

First of all, the morning of the picnic I told the guys that T did not like fish and asked that they not bring fish for dinner. This is completely out-of-bounds behavior. People who meet up together should never show any preference (or really, any interest at all) in the dinner that someone else will bring. But given that some of the research guys are fishermen, I guessed that they would want to bring freshly caught fish and cook it over the fire as a special dinner. I wanted to stop that as I knew T would not enjoy it and I wanted to protect her from either being hungry or forcing herself to eat a dinner she didn’t like.

On the other side, before we left my house, I told T that wearing long, loose clothing was my way of being respectful and asked if she could please wear one of my long tunics over her pants and t-shirt. I held out a white tunic with a toile print, something she would ordinarily never wear, and she agreed. Then I said that I cover my hair in front of the guys and that while she didn’t have to… She instantly agreed so I grabbed a lossi (headscarf worn with a thobe, the Dhofari-style housedress). Usually you wouldn’t wear a lossi outside the house, but it was 105 degrees, so I thought the light cotton would be the most comfortable choice for her. I knew the guys would say that she didn’t have to, but I also knew they were going to make an effort to bring a good dinner and this was a small gesture she could make to be polite.

When we got to the beach, we set out the mat and then put out cushions, Kleenex and the cooler with water and soda. I made a fire and we chatted until we heard cars. Then we stood up and I draped the headscarf on her and wound mine tightly.

When the guys came to the mat, one began fussing with the fire, setting rocks in two lines which usually means that fish would be grilled. I was disappointed and said to one of the men quietly in Arabic, “she doesn’t like fish!” He said, “there is chicken.” I nodded, then I saw one of the men open a plastic bag with lobster tails, removed from the shell.

I should not have worried. The men had listened to my (unreasonable) request for no fish, but as I had suspected, wanted to bring something freshly caught, so it was lobster. And, as I have never seen them take the meat out of the shell before, I knew they were showing politeness to a guest. [In contrast, the first few times I had lobster with them, they handed me a whole one and I had to twist off its head, pull off the small limbs, etc. – if I wanted to eat a lobster, then I had to deal with the lobster!]

The whole night was a series of modifications on their part – actions I had never seen in over 15 years of picnics. For example, instead of placing their chairs right at the edge of the mat as usual, most of the men sat about 6 feet back. Instead of eating by lights from cell phones or small battery-powered lanterns, one man set up a large, area-light attached to a car battery. Instead of a usual dinner with one dish (rice with meat, chicken or fish), there was a big container of rice and chicken, plus the grilled lobster tails, a salad in a separate bowl and a dessert.

Instead of people dividing themselves into two equal groups (or one-off if there was an odd number) around the two platters, the best pieces of chicken were put on one platter for me, T and one of the research guys, while the other five gathered round the second plate. Half the lobster tails were put on our platter as well. I had forgotten that T might not be used to eating with her hands, but one of the men brought spoons. The man eating with us gave her a spoon, then proceeded to eat his dinner with a spoon, which I have never seen him do before. No one commented on any of these adjustments and T did not comment on the bother of wearing a tunic and headscarf.

T chatted, answered questions, gave profuse compliments and (bless her!) was happy to sit quietly and look at the stars and ocean during the times the men were speaking in Gibali (Jebbali).

I was a little nervous – hoping that there would be a comfortable meeting between my friend of 25 years who was only 2 days into her first visit to the Arabian Peninsula and the research guys, most of whom had never socialized with a North American besides myself but everything worked out well.

By giving up some comfort/ in doing something unusual, we all helped create a positive atmosphere. I am very grateful to T and the research guys for a lovely evening and a lovely example of the necessity of all sides making adjustments to create harmony.

Houseways: Podcast, a discussion with Ahmed Almaazmi and Ayesha Mualla

Houseways: Including/ Excluding Expats in Discussions about Housing

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: Changes within Cultures

Reflections on Ethnographic Research in Dhofar Oman

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: (Not) Asking Questions

I will be talking about “Changing Kitchens in Southern Oman” at the annual conference of The Association for the Study of Food and Society & The Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society

Risse, M. “Changing Kitchens in Southern Oman.” Knowing Food: The Association for the Study of Food and Society & The Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society Conference, sponsored by Boston University. Forthcoming, May 31, 2023.

My presentation will focus on the changes to kitchen design and use in Dhofar, the southern region of Oman, over the past 40 years. Using photos from my extensive collection and data from interviews, I will explain how newly-built kitchens look different, and are used differently, from kitchens built in the 1980/90s. I will discuss aspects such as placement within the house, color choices, cupboards and tables. In addition, I will show how kitchens are used by different people at different times in comparison to the late 1900s. My goal is to use kitchens as a microcosm of changes within Dhofari society as how people prepare and eat meals is a reflection of how families interact.

One example of the type of change that has happened is that now expatriate workers are often cooking within kitchens. As many families hire a male cleaner to come for a few hours every day, kitchens now should have a door so that male workers do not walk through the main parts of the house. One aspect that has not changed it that kitchens are designed for passive safety. For example, countertops are set higher than in Western countries, sometimes so high that a family member must stand on a footstool, and stoves are placed on pedestals several inches above the kitchen floor. This is done so that children cannot see or reach food or implements (such as knives) that are on the countertop, nor can they reach the controls for the stove.

Reflections on Ethnographic Research: Changes within Cultures

(photo by Salwa Hubais)

Two writers about Dhofar were so firmly entrenched in the view that Dhofar should not be modern that their books had photos of empty streets; as if there were no Omanis in city settings. The only photos of Dhofaris had them positioned in rural landscapes.

I call this mindset “zoo mode,” and its adherents say things along the lines of:

Oh how horrible that the Dhofaris are losing their traditions! Every time I come here there are changes. Everything is to modern here now – they don’t have their culture anymore.

I have lost patience for this point of view that, in some manifestations, seems to want to turn Dhofar into a zoo-like entity where visitors can see people engaging in former lifeways. I try to be quiet (or change the subject) but sometimes I will remark:

But you yourself do not live in your grandmother’s house, with her furniture and decorations. You don’t eat what she ate in the way she ate it. You don’t wear her clothes or listen to the music she loved, so it might be unrealistic to expect other people to stay static.

Their reply is usually along the lines of: but they are losing themselves.

To me, this line of reasoning posits that the modern culture is inferior to and/or less appealing than that of previous iterations. And I wonder, how do non-Dhofaris find a vantage point from which to judge another culture?

I think Dhfoaris are transforming, adapting and making choices; all cultures change over time. What Dhofaris are “losing” is the desire to live in a way that visitors find interesting. That doesn’t mean they should return to the lifeways of 40 or more years ago. Dhofairs are not participants in a Colonial Williamsburg-type experiment in which they should work as historical reenactors to explain and demonstrate aspects of daily life in the past.

Yes, some lifeways are disappearing but so is diphtheria and washing clothes by pounding them on rocks. And the people who decide what parts of the culture should be carried forward are… the people in that culture.

As a literature professor, I take heart in rereading Oliver Goldsmith’s “The Deserted Village” written in the 1770s. In this poem the narrator laments the desertion of a village because of a variety of modern evils; this reminds me that in every century there are people who think all the good times, good manners, good objects and good traditions are gone forever. And yet humans continue to create new and positive ways to live.

Here is a simple example of cultural change from working with the research guys. Before Covid, picnic dinners usually meant someone cooking dinner over a fire. I enjoyed years of delicious stews and curries; fish was cooked over the flames or wrapped in foil in placed in the ashes. Picnics stopped during the time of lockdowns and curfews with people sticking close to family units. As the threat of disease retreated, the group started to meet again, but with changes.

The man who did most of the cooking has had changes in his responsibilities, so he no longer has the free time needed to cook dinners. We have adapted by the men bringing prepared food from home and me bringing food from a “safe” (well-known/ trusted) restaurant.

One night one of the men brought… individual pizzas. The first time in 17 years that I have seen a pizza at one of our meetings and the first time that we each had our own meal. I suppose I could have cut my hair and wailed at this terrible incursion of the modern but I said thank you and ate my pizza.

Yes, I would rather have fresh-caught fish cooked over the coals but I am aware of what a dish dinner entails: the time and effort to make a certain kind of fire, wait until there were the right kind of coals, preparing the fish, cooking it, preparing and cooking the rice, etc.

Actions have costs – a picnic dinner means someone cooking (a man standing over a beach fire or a woman standing over a stove at home) and all people make choices about which costs are worth the effort. Five years ago, pizza was not one of the choices for a group dinner. Now it is.

To me, this change is only a loss if I construe “fish cooked over a fire” as the only correct/ authentic type of beach dinner, a judgment I am unwilling to make.