Preface
On behalf of the 9th Annual Gulf Research Meetings at the University of Cambridge, this special issue of Sport, Ethics and Philosophy is the proceedings of the GRM Meeting on ‘The Rise of Modern Sport on the Arabian Peninsula: Politics, Art, Ethics’, which took place in the summer of 2018. The special issue also includes a number of invited papers from scholars who were unable to attend the Meeting.
The Gulf Research Centre (GRC) is a Geneva-based research centre with the mission of fostering academic studies on the Gulf region, including the Gulf Cooperation Council member countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the neighbouring countries of Iran, Iraq, and Yemen. The Gulf Research Centre Geneva established a sister research centre at the University of Cambridge in affiliation with the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies. The mission of the Gulf Research Centre Cambridge is similarly to foster academic studies on the Gulf region, but with a special interest in encouraging scholarly exchange between Gulf-based and UK-based academics.
Each summer GRC Cambridge organizes an Annual Meeting with a variety of research workshops on pressing issues for the region. Each workshop is an open forum for the critical and constructive examination of the issues. Our workshop, directed by Rita Elizabeth Risser of United Arab Emirates University and Andrew Edgar of Cardiff University, invited research from across the humanities and social sciences on the politics, art, and ethics of the practices of sport in the region, both historical and contemporary, but with a focus on modern sport in the region.
The rise of modern sport on the Arabian Peninsula is a project of modernization and nation-state building in the region. The workshop explored both the potential and also the hazards of this path toward modernization and nation building. The accelerated rate of modernization allows little room for error, and the vast wealth being invested in the infrastructure for the practices of modern sport and the arts in the region is sobering. The objective of the workshop was to find some bearing on the rapid rise of modern practices in a society that a generation ago was preoccupied with subsistence in a harsh desert environment.
It was a sensitive time to host the workshop. The embargo against Qatar by other GCC members had just been decreed. This points to the invaluable service that Gulf Research Meetings provide, not only as open fora in which to discuss pressing issues with openness and critical acuity, but also to associate with fellows from all regions of the Gulf. We are grateful to the Gulf Research Center for providing a much-needed venue for frank and inclusive inquiry.
We are also grateful to the participants in the workshop, whose diverse scholarly approaches, from history and philosophy through to geography and cultural studies, brought a richness and breadth to the inquiry. This research is a reminder of how fertile the subject of sport is for all manner of inquiry, and for why sport itself is of such political, ethical and cultural significance.
Rita Elizabeth Risser and Andrew Edgar
Table of Contents
Heritage
1. Birgit Krawietz, The Sports Path Not Taken: Pearl Diving Heritage and Cosmopolitanism From Below
2. Nora Derbal, Exercising the Body, Exercising Citizenship: On the History of Scouting in Saudi Arabia
3. Clarisse Roche, Appropriating and Re-Appropriating the Arabian Horse for Equestrian Sport: The Complexities of Cultural Transfer
Modernization
4. Andrew Edgar, Contemporary Art and Contemporary Sport on the Arabian Peninsula
5. Natalie Koch, The Geopolitics of Gulf Sport Sponsorship
6. Rita Elizabeth Risser, The Theatre of National Identity in Modern Sport
Deliberation
7. Ilan Tamir, Just Win the Game: The Reception of Arab Minorities on Israel’s National Football Team
8. Hossein Dabbagh and Andrew Edgar, Talking about ‘Fairness’ in Football and Politics: The Case of Navad
Acknowledgement
The Directors would like to thank the organizers of the Gulf Research Meetings, University of Cambridge for supporting this research.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).