In the Time of Oil Piety, Memory, and Social Life in an Omani Town [Hardcover]

Before the discovery of oil in the late 1960s, Oman was one of the poorest countries in the world, with only six kilometers of paved roads and one hospital. By the late 1970s, all that had changed as Oman used its new oil wealth to build a modern infrastructure.In the Time of Oildescribes how people in Bahla, an oasis town in the interior of Oman, experienced this dramatic transformation following the discovery of oil, and how they now grapple with the prospect of this resource's future depletion.Focusing on shifting structures of governance and new forms of sociality as well as on the changes brought by mass schooling, piped water, and the fracturing of close ties with East Africa, Mandana Limbert shows how personal memories and local histories produce divergent notions about proper social conduct, piety, and gendered religiosity. With close attention to the subtleties of everyday life and the details of archival documents, poetry, and local histories, Limbert provides a rich historical ethnography of oil development, piety, and social life on the Arabian Peninsula.This compelling historical ethnography explores how people in Bahla, an oasis town in the interior of Oman, experienced dramatic transformation in their lives following the discovery of oil in the late 1960s, and now grapple with the prospect of this resource's future depletion. Instead of beginning with gender segregation, veiling, honor, and modesty, Limbert considers how women's sociality must be understood in terms of political economy and transformations of modernity in Oman. This book is innovative, deeply interesting, and fascinating to read. I highly recommend it for graduate and undergraduate students as well as all anthropologists and historians of the Middle East. Mandana Limbert is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Queens College and The Graduate Center of The City University of New York. This is a timely and important book that highlights the power of ethnography to engage questil