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Bedouins and Sedentaries today in al-‘Ulā (Saudi Arabia): al-diyār and al-Dīra in the rearview mirror
Vincent Battesti & Léo Marty.
submitted to HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory.
ISSN: 2049-1115
Article abstract:
The Saudi communities inhabiting the oasis of al-’Ulā (Saudi Arabia) display a unity cemented by their allegiance to the kingdom, de facto excluding foreign workers (one for five Saudis). Essential to the oasis economy, they occupy the majority of local jobs. This Saudi unity is more proclaimed than locally thought and lived. In reality, identities are nested, defined by belonging to a group as much as by its distinction from other groups of the same nature. This principle of nested subdivision begins between Bedouin and Sedentary groups and continues within them. These first results of a rare ethnographic survey in Saudi Arabia, questioning the notions of autochthony and allochthony, are intended to offer—before the completion of the project that supports them—an essential knowledge base so that the current development of al-’Ulā, led by the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) and its contractors, is carried out as closely as possible to the social realities and the local population.
- A Ḥowaytī Bedouin elder, settled in al-’Ulā, receiving in his tent of hair (bayt al-ša‘r), al-‘Ulā, April 14th, 2019, Vincent Battesti
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