Tag: Oman

Crafting a Home: Interior Home Design in Southern Oman

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: 

Risse – publications – books

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.

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.”

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.

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.

 ***********

            [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.’

 

Outline and Chapter Abstracts for ‘Researching, Teaching and Working on the Arabian Peninsula: Creating Effective Interactions’

Practicalities: Managing a Short Research Trip to the Arabian Peninsula

Me Talk Pretty Never: Learning Arabic, part 1

Adjusting to Oman: My Dangerous Taxi

Recreating Culture – Lessons from Bakeries and Cafeterias

Culture reproduces – kids and outsiders learn what to do because of written rules and standards and/or people inside the culture explaining and enforcing.

The how of that replication is always interesting to me because it is so easy to see when parents instruct children, but not always clear in every-day life.

This morning I had a good example at the check-out line in the cafeteria. I put my carton of food on the scale and as soon as the clerk told me the price, I picked up the carton and set it in my purse, then I pulled out my wallet.

As soon as I picked up my carton, the person in line behind put their carton on the scale, making me realize that I was working on the assumption that people don’t put their food to be weighed until the person ahead of them has paid.

As I was handing over the cash, the person behind me asked the clerk a question, which the clerk answered. Then, as I was putting the change into my wallet, preparing to walk away, I heard the clerk say to the person behind me, “Usually, just wait for the person ahead to finish.”

I thought that was an interesting statement first, because the clerk was making expectations clear. Often in the States, there are few or no written directions, especially in stores or restaurants. In this cafeteria, you serve yourself and pay by the weight of the food but there are food workers standing near the food so someone might expect, for example, that the staff will put the food in the container or that there is a certain amount that you can take.

Second, the clerk’s statement is an order (verb first, no “you”) but it’s softened by the “Usually” and “just.” It’s bringing someone into cultural rules gently, without “you did it wrong” or “this is what WE do.”

This makes me think about how an adult corrects another adult about a cultural convention. Sometimes people uses glares or “excuse me” to point out mistakes, or they ignore the person. But when it’s a simple mistake, how does a stranger learn the right way to navigate?

When I lived in Germany, I was terrified of bakeries which were full of fierce, elderly clerks. I could read and write about difficult 1600s German texts, but the glare of a little old lady behind the counter utterly disarmed me. I was confused and made do with pointing at the kind of roll and holding up my fingers to show how many I wanted. It took for weeks until I was confident enough to say my order.

In Oman, I watched the same kind of learning curve with people in bakeries who were used to first-come, first-serve. They would wait until all the people who were in the store before them had ordered, then start to speak, only to realize that the clerk was ignoring them.

Sometimes they would speak louder or try to say “I was here first” but no one would pay attention. Clerks do not care about the order in which customers walk into the store. The order of service is: Omani women, Omani men, foreign women, foreign men and oldest to youngest within each category. I would sometimes point to an expat man and say “he was here first” but the clerks would not care. I was female; I got served first.

Now that I am in the States, it’s first-come, first-served. You spend years learning how to behave, then you have to re-learn how to behave. 

Me Talk Pretty Never: Learning Arabic, part 1

Celebrating Khareef

Adjusting to Oman: My Dangerous Taxi

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

 

Me Talk Pretty Never: Learning Arabic, part 2

Me Talk Pretty Never: Learning Arabic, part 1

The first authentic (not classroom) Arabic I understood was in a grocery store: an Omani man asked a clerk “wayn shokolata?” (where’s the chocolate?). I think it was very fitting that my first identification involved candy. It is also fitting that there wasn’t a verb.

Arabic is the fourth foreign language I have studied and, given that I am dyslexic and didn’t really start learning it until I was 42 years old, I am stuck at an odd mix of linguistic abilities. I have inadvertently created my own pidgin.

I know hundreds of Arabic nouns. From teaching literature and metaphors, I know colors, animals, birds and geographical features, but I never remember the words for parts of the body such as arm, foot and ears. I know “eyes” because you need it for metaphors of love, but I have no idea about nose or fingers. I know many words for furniture, types of food, rooms in the house and clothes, but I don’t know the word for “fork.”

I know pronouns and lots of adjectives and thank heavens you don’t need the verb “to be” for basic Arabic sentences: just give a pronoun or noun and a modifier: I happy/ he sick

I can rarely conjugate the verbs ‘to go’ and ‘come’ as fast as I need them so I make do with a pronoun, preposition, noun and time-markers: I to store yesterday. It’s incorrect but I can make myself understood in most situations.

After I had been in Oman for 7 years, I paid for an intensive, 6-week, Arabic language summer school in Muscat. All the students lived in an apartment building and took the bus to school every morning – it was like being in summer camp.

When I got back to Dhofar, the first time I met the research guys I ended up (I can’t remember why) explaining the story of Joseph from the Bible. It was the first time I could do an extended story in Arabic and from then on, I gained more and more confidence telling stories and having long conversations and arguments. I paid for another 4-week Arabic language program at the same school the following year and solidified my low intermediate status.

Now I can talk for hours in Arabic with the research guys, but our communication has aspects of a personal language. For example the verb for “talk” has the root of t-k-l-m, and I grasped that as tatakeleum not conjugated, not inflected for gender or tense – whenever I needed to express anything to do with speech, I throw in that word and they extrapolate the meaning.

And then there is learning in the opposite direction, when you are a native speaker of English on the Arabian Peninsula, you are always relearning your own language. When I bought a slice of “coffee cake” I was surprised that it tasted like… coffee. “Coffee cake” is not supposed to taste like coffee; it’s supposed to taste like butter-sugar-flour-eggs-cinnamon.

When female students said: “My mister told me” I assumed they meant husband or father, but they meant teacher. And I had to grit my teeth at being called “Miss,” not “Miss” with my last name, just “Miss.”

And I had to reexplain English to my students, such as the fact that that they could not use the fun cuss words they heard in movies and songs in the classroom. It was so amusing when a shy, quiet student who never wanted to speak in class would yell “#&*)!” when their books slid off the desk. “No,” I would say shaking my head, “you can’t say that at the university.”

We also a lot of time delineating bear/ bare – profit/ prophet – fair/ fare – merry/ marry/ Mary. I clarify that “I’m sorry” in English means “I am not happy to hear your bad news”; in Arabic it means “I am entirely responsible for the negative event that occurred.” So in English if you tell me your father is sick, I say “I’m sorry” but if I say that to someone in Dhofar they will respond, “Why? You don’t make him ill.” And “How are you?” in English means “I am not planning to slap you in the next five minutes,” not “please tell me all the details of your life.”

But with all my efforts to translation words and meanings, I am often happy to have a language barrier. Sitting in cafés amidst a swirl of languages is relaxing; I don’t have to focus on what someone else is talking about. On picnics, the research guys chat in Gibali, and I could just admire the stars. A few times one of them would offer to teach me Gibali, but an unwritten language is a bridge too far for me.

Adjusting to Oman: My Dangerous Taxi

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

Practicalities: Managing a Short Business Trip to the Arabian Peninsula

Bibliography for ‘Researching and Working on the Arabian Peninsula’ (2025, Palgrave Macmillan)

Me Talk Pretty Never: Learning Arabic, part 1

My favorite depiction of language learning is in the movie The 13th Warrior. Antonio Banderas’ character, Ahmad ibn Fadlan, picks up Old Norse in a matter of weeks by merely listening. Once he understands the words, he begins speaking fluently with conjugated verbs and perfect accent! I wish it were that easy!

I started learning French in middle school, then switched to German in high school. After I got my BA in German literature, I started on Ancient Greek when I was doing my PhD. After graduation, I got a teaching job at a new university in the Emirates.

During the weeks before I moved to Sharjah, I sat in cafés in Bethesda, Maryland practicing my Arabic letters in a beginner’s language book. Sipping lattes and writing out the shapes in my new calligraphy pen, I felt like I was quite the woman of the world.

During my first year of teaching in the Emirates, it was all I could do to keep up with my own students, but at the start of the second year I was part of a group of expat faculty and staff who requested that the administration create an Arabic class for us. I gradually realized, as we jumped through hoop after hoop, that no one wanted the expats to learn Arabic. English was for whatever needed to be said in public; the real decisions were made in Arabic.

We finally got a Westerner who knew Arabic to teach us and we soldiered on twice a week at lunch time for 4 or 5 months. I could transliterate, say simple phrases and bargain in stores but not do anything really useful.

I went back to the States for a few years, then returned to the Middle East. The first semester I was in Oman, I was simply surviving and getting over my culture shock, then I finally got to the point where I was ready to start learning Arabic again. There was an official class but the teacher was not very pleasant, so I asked a Lebanese co-worker if we could met once a week for lessons.

He was a kind man but it took a long time to find the right level for me. He started me on children’s stories without diacritics. Short Arabic vowels are not written as a letter but as a small mark above or below the consonant it is pared with; in regular writing such as in a newspaper, you will see “ktb” and if you don’t know the word, you can’t know if it is kataba, kitibi, kutubu, katibu, kituba, etc. I would sound out the consonants painfully slowly, then make random guesses as to the consonants. Total speculation.

He finally moved to an easier children’s book with diacritics: the mean mouse and the friendly turtle who rescued him. But it was rough going. And at the end of the semester the professor moved away.

In the fall, another American woman happened to remark that she had studied Arabic. “Can you teach me?” I asked and I started my next attempt. She had a young son who she was trying to teach Arabic to, so it worked out well; she would read him baby books in Arabic, then hand them off to me to struggle through. It is amazing to work out a language from the beginning, like a child. Amazing meaning, of course, frustrating.

I am a grown woman. I have navigated foreign countries and unruly students; I have a car and an IRA, and what is that papa hedgehog saying to baby hedgehog – ‘come here’ or ‘I will come’? Is that a past tense verb or a preposition? Where’s the vowel? I read with perfect interest and concentration about Shelly the Shell who got a grain of sand stuck in her mouth, would she recover? Why is that squirrel crying? Will the frog help her friend the turtle turn over? If the painter put blue over the cat’s yellow leg, what would happen? Drama! Tension!

I was happy to pay for the teaching and many Arabic children’s books, but I was always hoping to find a class so I could learn with other students.

One chance was an Arabic class that was offered at a local language school. I went to the first meeting which was difficult as I kept getting stuck in cultural chasms. Most of the other students were expat teachers so they kept articulating their needs (I would like interactive speaking exercises, I would like to have graduated listening activities, etc.) but our Arabic teacher had never taught before, so it was unlikely that they would understand, much less be able to produce what the students wanted.

The second issue was the choice of vocabulary. When our teacher asked us what expressions did we want to know, I said, “You are a brilliant student!” The woman next to me said with scorn, “Oh, you just want someone to say that to you!”

I thought, most of us are teachers, wouldn’t we want to have something positive to say to our students? But no one else was interested in being positive. We did not  learn “please” or “thank you”; we learned third person commands: “Sit! stand up! read! repeat! listen!” as if we were in a dog-training class. We did learn, “Excuse me” but only because one expat wanted to know how to say, “Get out of my way!”

The third issue was the teaching style. During the third class, the teacher presented us with a list of 16 sentences in Arabic. He read them aloud, then we had to put the sentences in the correct order to make a conversation. As I was working on it, I asked him the meaning of one word. He said, “You can figure it out” and said the word slowly.

I said, “No, I don’t know that word, can you please tell me?” As the teacher was fluent in English, I knew that he knew the meaning.

He repeated the word again in Arabic and I said, “I am sorry – repeating it doesn’t help, I don’t understand, could you please just tell me in English what this word means?”

He said, “If you think about it, you will get it.”

I said, “This is not really effective. I am lost here, can you please tell me what this word means?”

He said it again in Arabic.

I didn’t return to that class, but I eventually found an Arabic language summer school to attend, and with the help of Jane Wightwick and Mahmoud Gaafar’s books, I got to a low intermediate level.

Me Talk Pretty Never: Learning Arabic, part 2

Practicalities of Moving to the Arabian Peninsula: Using the Arabic Language

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

Selected Books on Dhofar in Arabic

One Year Away – Missing Oman

Adjusting to Oman: My Dangerous Taxi

I left Oman exactly one year ago and I miss Salalah every day. This is one of the first essays I wrote about Dhofar, sent to friends in October 2005

When I said I was moving to the Middle East and people asked me, “Isn’t that dangerous?” I replied “Not really.” What I meant to say was “What is ‘dangerous’ is not what you would understand nor what I would I be able to foretell.” Witness my taxi driver.

In many place in the Middle East, taxis don’t have meters and there is an accepted ‘in-town’ fare for ‘just go’ and one for ‘go and come back’ which, considering how long it takes to get a check cashed, find the right form, mail the letter, etc. basically means the driver will wait 10 minutes or so for free. And since usually you are running around trying to get your errands done Thursday morning (ME equivalent of Saturday morning) from 9 to 12, if you have a driver who doesn’t smoke, spit, leer or drive like a maniac, you will often just keep him all morning, giving him one lump sum when he takes you home.

If you find a really good driver (knows some English but doesn’t ask if you are married), you can work out a weekly rate for taking you to and from work every day and Thursday morning errands. As you can’t lease or buy a car without your official visa, which can take up to a month once you are in-country, getting a good driver quickly is essential. This is usually a process of having a lot of bad taxi rides (blaring music; passing on the wrong side; getting lost) until you find a guy you like. The paradox is that drivers who offer to be a regular driver are usually exactly the wrong kind of guy (a “any club who would have me as a member…” issue – you want a taxi driver who does not particularly want to talk to a Western woman, who treats you as one more anonymous fare).

My second night I was in town, I stopped by a schwarma stand (a few tables inside, clean, well-lit) and sat for a few minutes to have my chicken wrapped in pita bread and fresh fruit juice in peace. My colleague, X, walked in by chance so I started to ask him what some of the items on the menu were. X didn’t know what “Maryam” meant in this country and as we were discussing, a middle-aged local sitting at another table, explained the meaning (mixture of orange and mango juice) to X in Arabic. I asked about another term; X asked the local guy, who explained with a few smiles and gestures, fruit juice and frozen ice cream. I tried a third item; X, not interested in my linguistics endeavors, left. As I was paying, the local man introduced himself as N and asked if I wanted a taxi.

I said no, but, impressed that he had kept talking to X, not trying to talk directly to me until X had left, I asked for his mobile number. After he gave it to me, a man walked up to me and asked “You want a taxi,” I laughed, then glanced at N, who met my eye and laughed too. Ah, a sense of humor!

The next day I asked one of the secretaries to call N to pick me up from work. We went to the telephone company – I wanted a mobile, the ne plus ultra necessity of ME life. I had various forms, all of which were rejected by the clerk. N, who had wandered over to see what the problem was, jumped right in. Fifteen minutes of heated discussion later, the clerk agreed I could have a cell phone. Then it was two hours of paperwork and waiting. Once I had the phone chip in hand, back in the taxi. “Could you please take me somewhere to buy a phone?”

This was a request, but also a test – were we going to end up in his cousin’s overpriced House of Cell Phones? Nope, straight to a real store (i.e. you would get a warranty). But the man at the cell phone counter hadn’t shown up for work yet. I told N I would go to the grocery section for 15 minutes. When I returned 20 minutes later, he tapped his watch and said “I have been waiting five minutes!” Part of me thought “give me a break, I have been in-country 48 hours, I don’t even own a coffee cup”; part of me thought “Getting scolded by your taxi guy is a good sign. The more he sees you as a regular person, the better.”

Cell phone man arrives; I pick out a phone; N takes over. He installs the chip, sets the date and time, adjusts all my settings, programs a password, calls my phone and puts his name on my contact list, then calls himself on my phone so he has my number. We are now joined.

I put my groceries in the truck and collapse into the back seat; “Time to go home” I say. N drives off in the opposite direction. I am going to get a tour of the town and there will be a quiz: “This is Water Roundabout. What is the name of this roundabout?”

“Water.”

“Very good.” Then he heads out of town – as in away from all buildings and up a mountain road. Hmmmm, then he turns off the main road and onto a small side road. I contemplate whether I should ask him to turn around, attempt to jump out of the car or scream. I wonder how one calls the police, given that I have a brand-new cell phone in my purse, which for all he I know he has sabotaged. I wonder if this qualifies as “dangerous.”

I don’t do anything – trust? stupidity? jetlag and culture shock and general weariness? Ten minutes later he pulls up at beautiful scenic overlook. “Too much beautiful” he proclaims. Well yes, not that I wanted to go a scenic overlook, but then I hadn’t seen anything of the town yet except the inside of offices, so it was rather nice.

After sufficiently impressing upon me how nice his town was, he pulls into an open air restaurant and disappears for 5 minutes. When he comes back he hands me over a carefully wrapped plate of something. “Fish,” he says with a smile. “Special fish.”

 Then he drives me home. Where I discover it is a plate of grilled beef cubes. Ok.

Two days later we are out for more errands. We go to find me two small lamps, which he insists on plugging in to make sure they work; fuse boxes, which he inspects carefully; plastic bath mats, which he allows me to choose in peace; cleaning supplies, he picks up and looks at, but doesn’t comment on. I’m starving.

He pulls up to a mini-cafeteria, toots the horn and asks me “chicken or egg?” Well that is a Mobius strip sort of question. The guy comes out of his shop and looks at N. N looks at me. OK. “Egg.”

After a few minutes, the restaurant comes back and hands me a wrapped sandwich which is a bun shaped like a hotdog roll, but sweeter, with a chopped up boiled egg, cucumbers, tomatoes, ketchup, mystery sauce and cold French fries – which pretty much covers whatever one could possibly want or need.

 “Nice?” N asks.

Nice indeed.

He has a real job besides taxi driving so he can’t take me to and from work every day, but I call him for errands and for longer missions. When I was stuck at a hotel far from town with 2 obnoxious Brits and a bunch of local taxi drivers who wanted 5 times the going rate, I called N.

“Let’s take one of these taxis and just pay what we want to pay when we get there, not what we have agreed to pay,” said one of the obnoxious guys.

“You can’t do that. And N said he would come, he’ll come.”

“Why would he come all the way here?”

 You can’t explain the intricacies of the taxi relationship to Middle Eastern newbies, so I keep quiet. N comes; the guys start to ask him why the hotel taxi drivers were ‘so stupid’ as to charge so high a price that I ended up calling him instead. N doesn’t understand the question, thank goodness, and I try to steer the conversation to other issues. But both men spend the taxi ride complaining about Middle Eastern taxis and the Middle East in general.

When we drop off the second guy, N gets out a piece of paper to write his mobile number. “No, no, no,” I say softly in Arabic. N looks at me – why am I depriving him of a customer? – but puts the paper away.

As we head to my home, he says accusingly, “I give my number; you say no.”

“Those men too much bad, argue with you, not pay you fair price. My friend, I give your number. Not bad men.”

“Bad men?” He looks at me in the rearview mirror, not quite believing but sometimes you just have to trust across that cultural divide.

“Too much bad men,” I say.

“Ok.” He drives me home then refuses to let me pay him. “I was sitting, no work, you call, I am happy.” I tell him to look over there, he looks, I drop the cash in the front passenger seat. He laughs.

He goes to his village for a week and brings me back a large plate of fresh dates and an indescribably ugly black plastic bath mat.

I call him to ‘go round.’ He picks me up and we drive out of town. I don’t say where I want to go, just that I need to be back home at 6pm. “7pm,” he says. He switches on the English language radio station and, carefully avoiding the herds of camels in the road, drives for two hours – beautiful scenery flashes by. I drink the water and eat the ‘pizza’ flavored potato chips he insisted on buying for me.

I trust N with my life on steep, winding roads with camel obstacles; I trust him as he drives lonely roads hours outside town to places I couldn’t find on a map. I get in his taxi, say “Bookcase” and he takes me to the, by his carefully reasoned standards, the best place for bookcases in town.

When I said I was moving to the Middle East and people asked, “Isn’t that dangerous?”, I replied “Not really.” What I meant to say was “I have a lot of fresh dates in my kitchen I am trying to give away and a very ugly black plastic mat I am trying to discreetly throw away.” What I meant to say is, “May I introduce you to N?”

Practicalities of Moving to the Arabian Peninsula: How to Sit, Not Wear Shoes and Use Your Hands

Practicalities of Moving to the Arabian Peninsula: Dealing with Loss

Ethnography – Staying Calm

Ethnography – Navigating Shaking Hands on the Arabian Peninsula

 

One Year Away – Missing Oman

I left Salalah a year ago and am still processing that loss. I miss my friends and so many aspects of Dhofari life, especially:

  • Long conversations – When you sit down to talk to a friend in Oman, it’s expected you will talk for hours. I miss having coffee with a female friend for 2 or 3 hours; picnic dinners with the research guys which could mean 6 or 7 hours of chatting.
  • Gorgeous Nature – Pristine, empty beaches; snorkeling over reefs; boat rides, skimming along next to pods of leaping dolphins; sitting in the desert or on a beach with no ambient lights so you could a dark night sky full of stars; green mountains in the monsoon season
  • Animals – lizards and chameleons; seeing foxes, hearing wolves; the parrots which came to my guava tree; flamingos; camels, especially baby camels
  • Plants – palm trees; banana trees; lemon trees; fig trees; my gardens with papaya trees, henna trees, neem trees, olive trees, hibiscus, bougainvillea, oleander, gardenia, jasmine, aloes, lemongrass, yellow trumpet flower
  • Food – fresh coconut milk, schwarmas, fresh Yemeni bread, lobsters cooked over coals, fresh fruit juice, Balbek (if you know, you know), fresh lemon and mint, fresh fish
  • Teaching literature and 98% of my students – Although it cost me $100s a year, it was fun buying and reading books as I searched for new poems and stories to teach. It was a joy to craft syllabi with texts from different time periods and cultures with similar characters, plots and/ or themes and then the best part, talking about these texts with students who had great insights and could make connections to other texts and their own lives. Some classes were an uphill climb but in some classes we laughed all semester.
  • Discussing religion – Everyone I knew believed in God and was up for talking about religious beliefs; I could say, “I will pray for you” and ask, “Will you pray for me?” as a part of ordinary conversations
  • Multi-cultural everythings – Walking through the grocery store and not knowing what I was looking at: new vegetables, new fruit, words I didn’t understand on jars; all different kinds of clothes and fabrics
  • Active ethnography – I was always watching, listening, trying to figure out what was going on: What was that word? Why did that person do that? It was exhausting but always interesting
  • Constantly learning – students were always teaching me new expressions and gestures; the research guys teaching me how to how to drive on sand (only getting stuck three times!), up steep inclines and over rocks
  • Language barriers – Being able to go through the day without understanding most of the conversations around me was relaxing; now I constantly overhear people venting when I walk home or sit in a café
  • My truck – Driving in Oman is so fun on flat desert roads, twisting mountain roads, roads that curve along the shoreline
  • Houses – High ceilings, archways, lots of counter-space in the kitchen, well-designed bathrooms

What’s nice about where I am

  • Being able to easily see/ talk to friends, my mom and family
  • Working with kind and competent people: no lying, no back-stabbing, no drama and every single person says “Hello”
  • Flower stores, especially Kendall Flower Shop, Brattle Square Florist and Petali
  • Breakfast sandwiches, pizza, salads and ice cream without freezer burn
  • Not sharing my apartment with mice, spiders, bees or armies of ants – quiet ACs

Outline and Chapter Abstracts for ‘Researching, Teaching and Working on the Arabian Peninsula: Creating Effective Interactions’

Practicalities of Moving to the Arabian Peninsula: Using the Arabic Language

Ethnography – Finding the Middle Ground, part 1 of Discussing Photographs

Returning to USA – Culture Shock essays

Practicalities of Moving to the Arabian Peninsula: Cultural Understandings of Water and Food

In my book, Researching, Teaching and Working on the Arabian Peninsula: Creating Effective Interactions [ Researching and Working on the Arabian Peninsula: Creating Effective Interactions | SpringerLink  ], I make the point that being thirsty, hungry or hangry does not necessarily generate assistance:

saying “I’m hungry” in Western cultures usually produces a response along the lines of “let’s get you something to eat” or “here, have an apple” because there is a general sense that hunger is a negative sensation that should be avoided because it may cause low blood sugar, dizziness, weakness, irritability etc.; a “hangry” person should be fed. Saying “I’m hungry” in Oman works differently; it’s more akin to showing a weakness and will usually not create a need for anyone to do anything to help you. Hunger is a sensation that, as a grown-up, you should be able to control. This is in part because of the large part fasting plays within Islam. Complaining about hunger to people who regularly fast 12 or more hours in 90-degree heat is not going to elicit sympathy. (149)

I learned this first-hand during many picnics. It didn’t matter that the food was ready and I was hungry, if not everyone had arrived, then we waited to eat.

When I taught cultural studies, I would say that cultures are made up of interconnected objects, practices and beliefs and everyone would nod. Then I would say that interconnectedness does not always make sense across borders and everyone would nod. But when I started to give examples, the conversation often devolved into “they are doing it wrong.”

For example, in North American some people carry containers with water in order to not buy or use plastic bottles of water. This habit presupposes access to drinking water, as well as special scrubbers and/ or a dishwasher. On the Arabian Peninsula, some tap water is viewed as not drinkable and there may not be places with free, potable water at your archive/ school/ business. Thus, there may not be practices (placing water fountains in convenient locations) to help support your belief (don’t buy plastic bottles of water) and your object (your water bottle). This can lead to frustration, thirst, headaches and heat exhaustion.

Further, if you are traveling, you might not want to carry scrubbers or have access to a dishwasher. And a not-perfectly clean water bottle plus very hot weather can equal your water bottle becoming contaminated.

Another set of object/ practice/ belief that often falls apart on the Arabian Peninsula is the concept of eating at work. Many Americans eat lunch at their desk which creates an industry for adult lunch bags and bento boxes. On the Arabian Peninsula, it’s not common to eat lunch at your desk, and if you do, it’s usually something simple such as a fatayer or paratha. It’s also not common to bring food in to share, although people often bring in packaged sweets to pass out if they have something to celebrate such as the birth of a child or a wedding.

Outline and Chapter Abstracts for ‘Researching, Teaching and Working on the Arabian Peninsula: Creating Effective Interactions’

Practicalities: Managing a Short Research Trip to the Arabian Peninsula

Practicalities: Managing a Short Business Trip to the Arabian Peninsula

Practicalities of Moving to the Arabian Peninsula: How to Sit, Not Wear Shoes and Use Your Hands

Outline and Chapter Abstracts for ‘Researching, Teaching and Working on the Arabian Peninsula: Creating Effective Interactions’

Outline and Chapter Abstracts for Researching, Teaching and Working on the Arabian Peninsula: Creating Effective Interactions [ https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-96-5326-3 ]

Chapter 1 – Situating Work and Research on the Arabian Peninsula 1

Overview 1

Audience 3

Locals 5

Non-locals 7

Becoming Local and Controlling Interpretations 8

My Background 11

Doing Research 14

Research and Safety 16

Other Voices 18

References 24

Chapter 2 – Literature Review for the Arabian Peninsula 27

Overview 27

Ethnography and the Importance of Changing Your Ideas 28

Ethnography and the Importance of Writing About When

You Are Wrong 29

General Anthropology Texts 32

Textbooks 32

Fieldwork Journals 33

Discussing Fieldwork/Fieldsites 33

General Texts About Anthropology and/or Arab/Islamic Countries 35

Arabian Peninsula Countries 36

Situating Arabian Peninsula Studies/History 36

Bahrain and Kuwait 37

Oman 38

Qatar 38

Saudi Arabia 39

The United Arab Emirates 40

Yemen 41

Arabian Peninsula Themes 43

From the Society 43

Islam 44

Labor/Migration 46

Partner Studies 47

Politics/Power 47

Social/Family 47

Survive/Thrive 48

Tribes 49

Women 50

References 53

Chapter 3 – Before Moving to the Arabian Peninsula 77

Overview: Thinking About Adjustments 77

Learn the Alphabet 79

Starting to Understand Islam If You Aren’t Muslim 80

Ramadan 80

Religion and Public Performance 82

Get Ready for Culture Shock 83

Get Ready for the Weather 85

Get Photos, Make Copies, Find a Bank and Get Change 86

Get in Touch with People 87

Buy Stuff 88

Plan for Happiness 88

For Travelers 89

Starting Out—Working 91

Starting Out—Teaching 92

Starting Out—Researching 94

Thinking About Fieldsites 95

Think About How You Present Yourself 96

Figure Out Your Way of Taking Notes, and Be Ready to Entirely Change It 97

Be Able to Explain Your Research in Ways That Make Sense to the People You Are Talking To 97

Proceed Slowly and Hope for a Hand-Off 98

References 100

Chapter 4 – Adjusting to Life on the Arabian Peninsula 103

Starting Out—General Points 103

Know Yourself and Be Prepared 103

Smile 104

Over-Explain 106

Don’t Lie 107

Refine Your Ability to Read People 108

Get Local 108

Get Generous 109

Be Yourself in Your Downtime 110

Time/Money Continuum 111

Safety/Anonymity 112

Transportation 113

Communication 114

Visual Cultures 118

Information Brokers 120

Friendship/Hospitality 121

Family 123

Busy/Lazy 125

References 130

Chapter 5 – Key Topics for Expat Researchers on the Arabian Peninsula 133

Overview—Positionality 133

Tribes 134

You Aren’t in a Tribe/You Are in a Tribe 135

Talking About Tribes 137

Clothes 138

Language 140

Knowing/Not Knowing Arabic 140

Age and Gender 142

Men 143

Special Themes 146

Exhaustion 146

Authenticity/Modernity 150

Prejudices 151

What Happens When You Love (or Hate) the People You Talk To? 153

Claiming Expertise 156

Safety 156

Payback 157

References 164

Chapter 6 – Strategies for Research on the Arabian Peninsula 167

Overview 167

Research Practicalities—Meeting Other Researchers 168

Getting in Touch with Other People for Information and Assistance 168

When You Meet 169

After Meeting 169

When Other People Get in Touch with You for Information 170

Research Practicalities—In the Field 171

Be the Most Cautious Version of Yourself Until You Are a Little Settled 171

Be Careful About Becoming a Dancing Monkey 172

Be Careful of Newspaper/Radio Interviews 173

Be Calm/Don’t Be Calm 174

Start Talking/Stop Talking 175

Go with the Flow 176

Think About Different Explanations 177

Be Wary of the Inclination to Save Anyone from Anything 178

Be Ready for Deflection Strategies and Deal with Them Calmly 179

Accept There Will Always Be Changes to Make and More to Do 180

Refinements 180

Have Situational Awareness 180

Sit Where You Are Told to Sit and Stay Seated 181

Giving and Receiving 182

References 184

Chapter 7 – Suggestions for Expat Professional Workers on the Arabian Peninsula 185

Overview 185

Starting Out 186

Greet Everyone 186

Modesty Is Equally Important for Men and Women 187

Stay Formal at Workplaces 187

Ask Questions 188

Understand That “Yes” Does Not Mean Agreement 188

Everything Is a Precedent 189

Do Not Notice When What Was Impossible Becomes Possible (or What Was Done for Years Becomes Impossible) 189

At a Job 190

Keep a Change List 191

Sit in Your Seat 192

Names and Phone Calls 192

Find Your Dumping Ground 193

Find Mercy 193

Find Your Expat Veneer 194

Dissembling 194

Meeting Important People 195

Pay Attention to and Follow Up on Off-Hand Comments 196

Don’t Be Evil 196

Cultural Understandings 197

Power and the Chain of Command 197

Value Honesty 198

Louise Penny as Management Guru 199

Tribes in the Workplace 200

Refinements 201

Judging Behavior 201

Providing Food 201

Making a House Visit 202

Attending a Funeral 203

References 205

Chapter 8 – Suggestions for Teachers on the Arabian Peninsula 207

Overview 207

Arrival and Expectations 209

Research on Teaching 209

Culture and Pedagogy 210

The “Third” Option 211

Cultural Constructions Within High Context Cultures 212

Cultural Constructions of “Power” and “Authority” 213

Cultural Constructions of “Magic Words” 215

Cultural Constructions of “Patience” 216

Cultural Constructions of “Shame” 217

Techniques 218

Understand That Fear May Appear as Anger or Silence 218

Stay in Calm and in Control 219

Check for Understanding 221

Make Statements Instead of Asking Personal Questions 221

Explain Your Reasoning 222

Do Not Fight the Family 223

Do Not Make False Threats 224

Use Distraction 225

Use Humor 226

Stay Realistic—What You Can Control 227

Stay Realistic—Expectations 228

Give Clear Directions 229

What I Had to Rethink 231

Assumption: Students with a Low Level of English Will Be the Hardest to Teach 231

Assumption: Teachers’ Interactions with Students Are Based on Professional Considerations 232

Assumption: You Make Your Choices and You Live with the Consequences 233

Assumption: Try the New 234

Teaching Fiction to Non-literature Majors 235

References 237

Abstract

Researching and Working outlines strategies for current or soon-to-be anthropologists, government employees, business professionals, 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. The author has lived and taught on the Arabian Peninsula for more than 20 years and this book is a distillation of observations, academic research and longstanding, deep involvement with local communities in southern Arabia.

Chapter 1 – Situating Work and Research on the Arabian Peninsula

Chapter 1 begins by discussing the audience and scope of the book. It then delves into the questions of who is “local” on the Arabian Peninsula and who speaks for whom? Next there is a brief overview of the author’s background and work in the United Arab Emirates and Oman. Lastly, the author gives several extended examples of research and teaching to highlight elements of cross-cultural communication and confusion.

Chapter 2 – Literature Review

Chapter 2 is an annotated bibliography of texts from the fields of anthropology, history, literature, political science and travel writing which relate to the Arabian Peninsula. The books and articles are arranged by topic and country for researchers interested to see what kinds of work have been done and for readers looking for more in-depth information. There are also short essays on the importance of changing your ideas and acknowledging when you are wrong while doing research, as well as how to pick a fieldsite. Next the chapter gives a selected bibliography of texts pertaining to specific Arabian Peninsula counties. This is followed by short lists of texts pertaining to reoccurring themes in Arabian Peninsula research: Islam, Partner studies, Labor/ Migration, Politics/ Power, Social life/ Family, Survive/ Thrive, Tribes and Woman.

Chapter 3 – Before Moving to the Arabian Peninsula

This chapter is for teachers, researchers and business professionals who have not spent significant time on the Arabian Peninsula. It covers basics such as learning the Arabic alphabet, starting to understand Islam and managing Ramadan as a non-Muslim. It also has specific advice on how cope, for example how to deal with the hot weather, the need for using an international bank and how to prepare paperwork. The chapter includes information for how to get in touch with people before arrival and how to plan for happiness in-country. It ends with sections for specifically for business professionals and teachers. For researchers, there is information about how to create a network of acquaintances, integrate with the local community, decide how to present yourself and figure out the way to take notes.

Chapter 4 – Adjusting to Life on the Arabian Peninsula

This chapter covers the nuts and bolts of first steps on the Arabian Peninsula for teachers, researchers and business professionals. For example, it explains that new arrivals are often taken directly from the airport to meet colleagues and/or start house hunting. The chapter sets out necessary adjustments such as the importance of smiling, over-explaining, not lying and learning how to read people. In addition, the chapter addresses topics such as safety/anonymity, movement through public spaces, effective communication and the consequences of working in cultures that are often visual-, not text-based. How friendships, family relations and information brokers are handled on the Arabian Peninsula are also discussed.

Chapter 5 – Key Topics for Researchers on the Arabian Peninsula

This chapter is for researchers and addresses the issues of positionality, tribal structures, clothing, language and gender. The text includes advice on general topics such as coping with exhaustion, handling prejudices and claiming expertise. It also discusses what happens when you love (or hate) the people you talk to, how to keep safe and how to manage payback.

Chapter 6 – Strategies for Research on the Arabian Peninsula

This chapter helps researchers think through specifics. There are sections about how to do interviews, talk about your project, deal with the press, give presentations and keep up connections with interlocutors. It gives suggestions about being the most cautious version of yourself until you are a little settled and not allowing yourself to be set up for public mockery. It covers how to cope with deflection strategies and keep up situational awareness.

Chapter 7 – Suggestions for Expat Professional Workers on the Arabian Peninsula

This chapter is for business professionals and travelers with guidance for how to prepare for the weather and bureaucracy on the Arabian Peninsula. It explains the need for quiet, modest and formal behavior at workplaces, public spaces, cultural locations and homes/hotels/hostels. It explains that a “yes” is not necessarily an agreement and “I can” does not necessarily mean the person has that ability. Further, it clarifies how to create a positive work environment within cultures which often value family-based events (births, weddings, deaths, recovery from illness, etc.) more important than work requirements. It gives details about settling into the work environment with details about power structures, the value of honesty, how to behave with important people and the importance of having an expat veneer.

Chapter 8 – Suggestions for Teachers on the Arabian Peninsula

This chapter is for teachers and covers how to set achievable expectations for classroom management and workplace behaviors. The focus is on how meanings of words such as “power,” “authority,” “patience” and “shame” carry specific, and possibly new meanings, within high context cultures on the Arabian Peninsula. The chapter sets out techniques to create a positive classroom atmosphere, check for understandings, stay realistic and use distraction. Lastly, the text explains the concept of the “third way,” meaning a combination of the teacher’s pedagogical background and local expectations within a classroom can create a space for win-win interactions between students and teachers.

Practicalities: Managing a Short Research Trip to the Arabian Peninsula

Practicalities: Managing a Short Business Trip to the Arabian Peninsula

Ethnography – Whatever You Do, Don’t Smile, part 2 of Discussing Photographs

Practicalities of Moving to the Arabian Peninsula: How to Sit, Not Wear Shoes and Use Your Hands

Practicalities: Managing a Short Research Trip to the Arabian Peninsula

Researching and Working on the Arabian Peninsula: Creating Effective Interactions, https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-96-5326-3

First, look at the calendar closely – check for Ramadan, Eids, national holidays, school vacations – museums, archives, schools, stores will be shut without notice but at least make sure you are clear from the major closures. If you want to see people at a university, look at the school calendar. For example, many universities have their graduations ceremonies in the fall, not spring, so that means several days of canceled classes and everyone being busy. Check for tourist seasons; short-term rents can vary widely depending on the month.

Pack

  • all the documentation you might need, depending on the archive/ university/ research center you might need copies (or originals) of diplomas, transcripts and/ or letters of reference. You also might want to create a file with documents to leave with someone who can scan/ FedEx paperwork as needed. You don’t want to ask someone to search through paperwork or e-mails for the list of classes you took in your Masters program.
  • whatever medications you need to get you through the weeks ahead – you don’t want to lose a day or more trying to get doctor’s appointments and prescriptions. Drugs that are over-the-counter in your country might not be available where you are going
  • loose cotton/ linen/ flax clothing, make sure your body from elbows to knees will be covered with non-transparent fabric at all times (bathing suits for hotel pools and distant beaches), sunglasses (if you can afford it, get prescription sunglasses) and a hat
  • some kind of scent (rose water, orange blossom water or jasmine water are fine)
  • if your surroundings matter to you, bring whatever you need to sleep (lavender spray, eye mask, an app on your phone that makes white noise, painkillers/ aspirin/ melatonin) and Blu Tack. If you are traveling on a budget, you may end up in a cement-block room with a LOUD window air-conditioner and/ or a window you can’t open and it’s dark at 8pm. Blu-tacking maps/ fabric/ postcards to your walls can help your space feel less prison-like.

If you are not with a group, politely get in touch with people before hand – use whatever method you want (e-mails, LinkedIn, social media, etc.) at least a few weeks ahead of time. The whole arrive-in-country-and-spend-the-first-night-trying-to-set-up-appointments-for-the-next-morning endeavor is not usually helpful. Once you are in-country and have a few acquaintances, then you need to be ready for last-minute invitations, but try to get some contacts ahead of time.

Get a seat towards the front of the plane, be ready to get in the aisle and move as soon as it is your turn, move as quickly as you can to immigration – immigration can take 10 minutes or 2 hours, get is line as fast as you can.

You want to go to the most important place first but, if possible, try not to meet anyone or go to the archive/ museum/ university/ site on your first day in-country. Unless you already have a lot of experience in the Middle East, the heat/ humidity may be a shock. Give yourself a day to adjust and (depending on your home culture) get used to being stared at constantly. Take yourself for a practice run on the subway/ metro/ bus to wherever you are going to be working, walk around the neighborhood you are staying in, browse through grocery stores, find a café you like, etc.

Figure out what you are going to do for your down time; you can’t always be “on.” Reading, interviewing, translating, searching, walking through libraries, studying, taking photos: all that mental processing in a new culture is exhausting. Take breaks! Go back and forth six times in a row on an abra in Dubai, walk along the beach if you are near one, get a day-pass at a resort and lounge by the pool, read in a hotel lobby, go through the souq and buy cute leather slippers with gaudy, gilt threadwork. Do not try to spend all day every day chasing your research goals. Do not attempt to spend every night writing up notes. Make haste slowly.

Never get into a situation you can’t get out of. Until you have been in-country a few weeks, stay in more public areas and don’t rely on phones, electronics, web sites, apps, etc. to help you the same way as they did in your homespace. For example, if you meet a local, have a great conversation and they invite you to a restaurant for lunch, there are a lot of ways this could go right and some ways this can go wrong. You could ask a taxi driver if they know the restaurant, he says “yes,” you get in, he starts driving, then he confesses that he does not know, you can’t find the location on-line and it’s 30 minutes of aimlessly driving in the general area. Maybe that’s fun; maybe that’s not fun. Or you get to the restaurant, your friend cancels and you don’t feel comfortable in the place alone. Or you have a great lunch, your friend takes off and you decide to walk back to your hostel at 2pm, when it’s 98 degrees with high humidity. By the time you decide to get a taxi, there are none because everyone rests from @ 2pm until @ 4pm, so you have given yourself heat exhaustion and are in bed for a day. Malls are your friend until you are settled.

Judge what is going on by actions, not words. If you are from a culture in which people point out mistakes and/or say what they feel, it may be disorienting to have people tell you what you want to hear, which might have no relationship with reality. If you can, ask “is it better if I do x or y” questions.

Remember that on the Arabian Peninsula, self-control is highly valued. If you are rude, sometimes locals will stay calm and pleasant, so you may not be aware of how big a mistake you are making. If you come from a confrontational culture in which it’s accepted that people argue loudly and with passion, it may be disorienting to have people who won’t engage with you. If you love dashing into political talk (or as one American undergraduate did, met Dhofari women and within a few moments asked them if their husbands beat them) you might find people who are happy to argue, but are always busy if you want to meet them a second time.

Practicalities of Moving to the Arabian Peninsula: Using the Arabic Language

Ethnography – Finding the Middle Ground, part 1 of Discussing Photographs

Bibliography for ‘Researching and Working on the Arabian Peninsula’ (2025, Palgrave Macmillan)

Practicalities of Moving to the Arabian Peninsula: Getting and Sending Mail/ Packages