Mirages past and future : foreign expertise and the political economy of cultural heritage in Qatar
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Arabian Peninsula states are investing tens of billions of dollars annually in cultural productions ranging from archaeology research and historic conservation to cultural events and tourism, monumental museums, art programs, and other heritage-based projects. The stakes are high: Qatar has declared cultural preservation is essential to its survival. Yet throughout the Gulf much of this work relies on non-citizens who may not share identities, experiences, and values with the citizens and nations they ostensibly represent. This dissertation uses ethnographic, historical, and archival methods to explore the significance and consequences of this system of international expertise. Gulf scholars typically explain the prevalence of expatriate culture experts as a wealthy society's rational response to a shortage of qualified 'local' professionals, to be rectified through specialized educational development. Instead, my research traces this system's roots to colonial-era archaeology expeditions, demonstrating that Qatar's decades-long construction of its cultural industry constitutes an active negotiation of authenticity rather than a simple nationalist project of modernity. Turning to experts, I show how North Atlantic expatriates' position as guests and at-will employees influence the perception and reception of their expertise. In this context expertise becomes positional, relational, about social life (and its limits) in addition to its technocratic enactments. Conversely, a new generation of Qatari cultural experts remains largely unrecognized due to enduring forms of global discrimination as well as the lenses of political economy through which outsiders typical view the region. Despite contestations of Qatari heritage by knowledgeable citizens, the results are largely productions which reproduce cultural narratives advantageous to the state—obscuring how heritage becomes a powerful mechanism for internal social change in addition to its international political value for Qatar. This research reorients heritage analysis from prevailing value-oriented theories of nationalism toward a concept of smart desire building from anthropology's tradition of studying up and decolonial critiques of Deleuze and Guattari. It also reconsiders the growing anthropology of expertise by delineating the constraints upon expert rule and complex limits of recognition. Anthropological attention to people creating cultural productions moves beyond the limits of political economies of heritage—restoring emphasis on process and agency, even as this project's approach contributes to a critical anthropology of the West.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2022; ©2022 |
| Publication date | 2022; 2022 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Christians, Paul |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Meskell, Lynn |
| Degree supervisor | Tambar, Kabir |
| Thesis advisor | Meskell, Lynn |
| Thesis advisor | Tambar, Kabir |
| Thesis advisor | Bauer, Andrew M |
| Thesis advisor | Rico, Maria Trinidad |
| Thesis advisor | Trivedi, Mudit |
| Degree committee member | Bauer, Andrew M |
| Degree committee member | Rico, Maria Trinidad |
| Degree committee member | Trivedi, Mudit |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Anthropology |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Paul Christians. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Anthropology. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2022. |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/hq275qs0950 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2022 by Paul Christians
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