This talk is part of the Berlin Anthropology Seminars.

"This talk presents the results of seven years of anthropological research on the intellectual milieu of the Sultanate of Oman, which I am currently turning into a book. What began as an ethnography of intellectual life among liberal and religious thinkers in the Gulf region––which has become a new cultural hub in the Arab world over the last three decades––led me to conduct an anthropology of the Omani state. From this perspective, I examine how this state promotes a specific ethical model of citizenship known as the 'Omani path' (al-samt al-‘umānī), grounded in a normative understanding of history and in a vision of an undivided, consensual, and harmonious nation. By controlling knowledge production, the Omani state strives to instill certain forms of reflexivity while marginalizing those that might criticize the normative image of society it tries to impose. Finally, this leads me to conceptualize ethnographically the meaning of freedom by analyzing the different ways Omani intellectuals position themselves in relation to the state discourse and practices of power, thus inhabiting distinct forms of freedom."

This is a hybrid event. Online participation will be possible under the following link:

https://fu-berlin.webex.com/fu-berlin/j.php?MTID=m0ae58f835583310e5c077aa2ae3364f3