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“Regionalizing Oman”: A New Interest of Research on Oman and Its Spatial Dimensions

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Regionalizing Oman

Part of the book series: United Nations University Series on Regionalism ((UNSR,volume 6))

Abstract

In this introductory chapter, the editor of the volume presents the background of the present volume – especially touching on the renewed interest of researchers from a wide range of social science disciplines in the Gulf area and, in the wake of it, in Oman – and the book’s general outline before it sums up each chapter of the volume individually. The presentation of the chapters shows the multiple possible perspectives on “Regionalizing Oman”.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For criticism of established methodologies in social research and new approaches that go beyond (exclusive) recourse to the territorial nation state and conventionally conceived world regions, see Wippel, Lorenz and Mattheis as well as Bromber, in the first, conceptual part of this volume.

  2. 2.

    The following references are selective. For a more exhaustive bibliography, see Düster and Scholz (1980).

  3. 3.

    For the dispute about the “right” denomination of the Gulf, see Wippel (in this volume). The term “Arab Gulf”, taken as a socio-economic project in its own right in contrast to the traditional use of the term “Persian Gulf”, has meanwhile found wider recognition.

  4. 4.

    Currently, another edited volume with multidisciplinary contributions on the semiotics of architecture and infrastructure in the Arab Gulf region is under preparation (Bromber et al. 2013).

  5. 5.

    For references, see Zorob and Wippel (both in this volume). For earlier contributions on national perspectives on regional cooperation, see El-Rayyes (1987) and Anthony (1987).

  6. 6.

    This research interest has also been demonstrated by another international conference, “The Ibadism of Oman – Its Overseas Development and its Perception Overseas”, at the University of Tübingen, Germany, in May 2011, to be followed by another reader.

  7. 7.

    For the most part, the Fritz Thyssen Foundation for Research Promotion financed the conference under the reference number 30.10.0.007. Additional funds came from the DFG project on Oman presented in the next paragraph, the postgraduate programme “Critical Junctures of Globalization” at the Research Academy Leipzig and from Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat.

  8. 8.

    The project was funded by the German Research Council (DFG) under the reference numbers GE 749/8-1 (April 2008 to March 2010) and GE 749/8-2 (October 2010 to September 2011). A part of the project funds not only helped to organize the aforementioned conference, but also to finance a student assistant, Michael Benz, who was very helpful in the copy editing of this publication.

  9. 9.

    The Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) funded this project under the reference number 30/8845 (August 2008 to March 2010 and October 2011 to December 2013).

  10. 10.

    Further conceptual findings, in particular in the following chapter, result from previous work on territorialisation and regionalisation processes in the larger West Saharan region.

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  1. Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), Kirchweg 33, 14129, Berlin, Germany

    Steffen Wippel

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  1. Department for Economy and Social Geography of Arab World, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

    Steffen Wippel

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Wippel, S. (2013). “Regionalizing Oman”: A New Interest of Research on Oman and Its Spatial Dimensions. In: Wippel, S. (eds) Regionalizing Oman. United Nations University Series on Regionalism, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6821-5_1

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