Honour Is in Contentment - Life Before Oil in Ras Al-Khaimah (UAE) and Some Neighbouring Regions

Based on interviews and field research, the authors explore the sets of ideas Arab tribespeople from Ras Al-Khaimah had about tribe and community; social and economic networks, and jural contracts for livelihoods and profits; their uses of their environments; the moral relations of credit, debt and labour; ruling; economic and political transformations; and ideas of regional history where conflicts were regarded as disputes over sets of ideas, and informal accounts of tribal and local histories.
Their lively descriptions and explanations of life before oil portrayed tribal societies whose relationships were moral rather than political and were between jurally equal persons. All lived from their own resources; 'wealth' was material self-sufficiency; 'riches' the richness of social relationships. Political arenas were decentralised and underpinned by common cultural and moral values.
Published sources give a wider context to these ideas and events which show the great complexity and differing perspectives of 'life before oil' in the Gulf.

About the author

William O. Lancaster and Fidelity C. Lancaster, Aberdeen University, Scotland, UK.

Product details

• Authors: Fidelity Lancaster, Fidelity C. Lancaster, Willia Lancaster, William Lancaster, William O. Lancaster
• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 24.06.2011
• EAN: 9783110223392
• ISBN: 978-3-11-022339-2
• No. of pages: 607
• Dimensions: 164 mm x 38 mm x 234 mm
• Weight: 1030 g
• Illustrations: 23 Taf./plates
• Series: Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des islamischen Orients; Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des islamischen Orients, Neue Folge; Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des islamischen Orients, Neue Folge; Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des islamischen Orients; ISSN
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Cultural history; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; Kulturgeschichte, Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Altertum, Kulturanthropologie, Antike, Geschichte des Nahen und Mittleren Ostens, Ostasiatische und indische Philosophie, Nahost, Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie, Ethnographie, Vereinigte Arabische Emirate, Mittlerer Osten, HISTORY / Middle East / General, Geschichte / Kulturgeschichte, Anthropologie / Kulturanthropologie, Naher Osten - Nahost, Osten / Mittlerer Osten, Ethnologie; Vereinigung arabischer Emirate; Arabische Stämme; 20. Jahrhundert; Cultural Anthropology, Arab Tribes, UAE, Oman, Economics