The United Arab Emirates A.D. 600 to the present: a socio-discursive transformation in the Arabian Gulf

Printed version of author's Ph.D. thesis submiltted to the American University in 1996 .
"This study is a socio-discursive analysis of the Arabian Gulf society, with emphasis on what is now the contemporary U.A.E. It covers four periods: The Islamic Period (600 A.D. to 1500 A.D.); The Transformational Period (1500 A. D. to 1820 A.D.); The Colonial Period (1820 A.D. to 1971 A.D.) and The Contemporary Period (1971 A.D. to the Present). Socio-discursive analysis is used in treating each of these periods. This means that the emphasis is on the social formation, or the political economic and cultural structure of Arabian Gulf society that arose during each period, and on the discourses, or the socially constructed power relations arising in Arabian Gulf society during each period. As Arabian Gulf society is analyzed for each period, Arabian Gulf society is examined both in relation to previous periods and in terms of how it interacted with the global system, or other societies, surrounding it during each period. However, this study avoids treating the periods and stages through which Arabian Gulf society has passed in terms of the pre-oil/post oil, or the pre-colonial/post-colonial model. Instead, it analyzes the Arabian Gulf society during each period in relation to its own construction, and in relation to other societies within the global system of each period with which the Arabian Gulf society interacted. This study assesses how each period's socio-discursive formation has been able to transform and reproduce itself, and how the contemporary socio-discursive formation has done so in relation to its predecessors. "--Back cover.