Robert Springborg

Alanoud Alsharekh

As the Gulf assumes an ever more important identity in the global political economy, we see the emergence of a new popular and political culture underpinning its increasingly self-confident national identities. This volume explores the new dynamism of the Gulf, reflected not just in high-rise buildings and booming stock markets, but also manifested in the realms of art, ideas and expression, and their relationships with political authority. Contributors include figures instrumental to the emergence of these new identities, including artists, broadcasters and cultural commentators.

Popular Culture and Political Identity in the Arab Gulf States

The six Arab States of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are all monarchies, but their societies, economies and politi are organised primarily through kinship, in the form of extended families and tribes. No other region in the world consists of states so traditional in their organisation, developing at rates well above global averages, are ultra-modern in many other regards. The book examines the paradox of the persisting importance of family and tribe in the face of modernisation. It evaluates past and present roles of kinship in the GCC states, assesses the impacts of change, and speculates on likely future patterns of social, economic and political organisation. Contributors include Shaikha Hind bint Salman al-Khlifa, Salwa al-Khateeb, Fred H. Lawson, Mandana Limbert, James Onley, J. E. Peterson, Jean-Fraçois Seznec and Ali al-Tarrah.

Kinship Policies and Modernity

The Gulf Family

Deals with the concept of feminism as a cross-cultural literary device that uncovers the social development of women's emancipatory progress through the work of both English and Arab female novelists. This study relies on many theories presented by the 1970's feminist critical movement, especially that of Elaine Showalter's tripartite structure.

Alanoud Alsharekh

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