Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in Anthropology
Episode: Scott J. Weiner, "Kinship, State Formation and Governance in the Arab Gulf States" (Edinburgh UP, 2024)
Description: Tribe-state relations are a foundational element of authoritarian bargains in the Middle East, and in particular in the Gulf States. However, the structures of governance built upon that foundation exhibit wide differences. What explains this variation in the salience of kinship authority? Through a case comparison of Kuwait, Qatar and Oman, in Kinship, State Formation and Governance in the Arab Gulf States (Edinburgh University Press, 2022) Dr. Scott Weiner shows that variation in tribal access to limited resources before state building can account for these differences. Its conclusions are based on seven months of archival research and interviews in...