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Doctoral thesis prepared by Léo Marty:
“The functioning of an oasian community, and its relations toward the environment: al-‘Ulā oasis”
Original title: Fonctionnement de communautés oasiennes en Arabie saoudite et leurs relations à l’environnement : l’oasis d’al-‘Ulā
– Supervisors: Vincent Battesti (UMR 7206 Éco-anthropologie, Muséum national d’histoire naturelle) and Pr Serge Bahuchet (UMR 7206 Éco-anthropologie, Muséum national d’histoire naturelle). Funded by the CNRS al-‘Ulā AS Project: Anthropological survey of al-‘Ulā community and its oasis system project. Thesis started on 26 Nov. 2029.
– On Theses.fr website: https://theses.fr/s408963
– Thesis enrollment in the doctoral school of the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle.
– Léo Marty defended his thesis on 26 April 2024 in Paris (Musée de l’Homme).
Thesis Committee:
• Chair: Nicolas Puig
• Examiners: Vincent Battesti, Sophie Laligant, Martha Mundy, Blandine Destremau, Nicolas Puig
• Reviewers: Martha Mundy, Blandine Destremau
– Summary:
Located in the northwest of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the al-‘Ulā oasis is the subject of an ambitious development project by the Saudi government. After the economic takeoff of the 1980s that profoundly changed living conditions in this oasis socio-ecosystem, this development project represents a second wave of changes. This wave raises the question of the modalities of reproduction of the oasis communities that currently live and shape al-‘Ulā. Through an ethnographic method mobilizing the tools of ethnoecology and in an interdisciplinary approach, this thesis work questions, based on the apprehension of resources in this oasis socio-ecosystem, how the communities of al-’Ulā reproduce themselves from a social and ecological point of view. After introducing the tools and the context of this ethnographic investigation (including fieldwork lasting nearly 18 months), I describe the sociological and spatial structures of the oasis to question the conditions of reproduction of said communities. Through the concepts of normative and socio-ecological registers, I offer keys to reading the relations of these communities with their environment. I then discuss the results of this research through the modeling of socio-ecosystems integrating, in an original way, resources (material and symbolic), normative, and political elements. The political element is considered as the main driving force in shaping these systems.
– See: https://ecoanthropologie.fr/fr/annu...
