Arabian Oasis City: The Transformation of 'Unayzah

Two anthropologists, one female and Saudi (Altorki), the other male and American (Cole), teamed up to study a small town in the north of Saudi Arabia. They sketch its twentieth-century evolution from political autonomy and economic near self-sufficiency into precisely the opposite. The background study of 'Unayzah (spanning the years 1900-75) is valuable and useful; but the analysis of the boom years and thereafter (1975-87) holds the greatest interest. As the first anthropological field study of the transformation of a local community in Saudi Arabia since the boom, Arabian Oasis City offers important insights into the human changes that took place during the boom years, as well as those that did not.

The authors show that while material circumstances have changed completely, the population has not been able to keep up. As a result, 'Unayzah's many advances do not "contribute to sustainable development." This points to the most basic problem facing the town: "the need to once again fully depend on a skilled and labor force that is composed of sons and daughters of 'Unayzah." Such will not be easy, they imply, for (in the words of a foreign laborer), "The old ones know all about work, and they used to do everything. But the young ones don't know how to work at all." The authors discern one glimmer of hope, however: the laziness that prevails today should come to an end as oil revenues decline. Then, economic imperatives will compel a work ethic to re-emerge.

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