The oasis model across the Sahara and the Near East

Lecture (in French) given for the UTL conferences,
Université du temps-libre, of Marennes-Oléron, Saint-Pierre d’Oléron, île d’Oléron (France),
January 31^th 2022, 3:00 pm-5 pm.
– UTL website: https://www.utl-marennes-oleron.fr/...

– The oasis model across the Sahara and the Near East
Original title: Le modèle oasien à travers le Sahara et le Proche-Orient

– Résumé:

Reciprocal and dynamic relationships link societies and their environment and are mediated by discourses and practices. In the oases, the immediate environment is an anthropic object, built by human, always artificial. Oases can be defined as the combination of a human settlement and a cultivated area (often a palm grove) in a desert environment. The palm groves are spaces with an agricultural vocation. However, the gardens that make up the palm grove go beyond the strict framework of agriculture. They are also places of innovation and transmission of knowledge, places of ostentation and food production, of expression of the group’s norm and of the individual’s identity. Oasis gardens are also at the center of issues of production, biological diversity... and even cultural diversity.

One of the old (abandoned) villages in an elevated position above the palm grove, in the Khaybar oasis (KSA), Sept. 8^th, 2021, Vincent Battesti