Second-year Report—Sept. 2021. Anthropological survey of al-‘Ulā community and its oasis system

– Vincent Battesti & Léo Marty (2021) — « Second-year Report—Sept. 2021. Anthropological survey of al-‘Ulā community and its oasis system » Annual Report to AFALULA, Paris, CNRS, 29 p.

⟶ Annual report for the al-‘Ulā AS project.

– Purpose of the document:

This document reports the progress made during the second year (October 2020—September 2021) for the project “Anthropological survey of al-‘Ulā community and its oasis system” (as known as al-‘Ulā AS Project). These advances are also explained according to the somewhat particular context of this research project. Indeed, the Covid-19 pandemic impacted the forecasted calendar. While the schedule planned for fieldwork, recruitment of a postdoctoral researcher in ethnoecology, expertise of an agricultural engineer, expertise of anthropologist colleagues on short missions for year 1 and year 2 have been delayed, we managed to adapt and undergo research. In doing so, we have had promising early results. In light of the pandemic situation we faced, we consider, however, that the project needs a supplementary year to properly complete its analysis of the local situation. Nevertheless, it is planned to write up some of the results in progress (intermediate, we insist) into peer-reviewed research papers to be published in scientific journals, in order to provide a scientific knowledge base that can be shared with fellow researchers from other projects and stakeholders in the development of al- ‘Ulā (and this, as early as the next few months).

Egyptian agricultural workforce in al-‘Ulā oasis, old palm grove, Saudi Arabia, September 29, 2021, by Vincent Battesti