Guest-Editors' Introduction: Re-Worlding the Gulf: Anomaly as Geopolitical Function

The multi-vector development discourse about 'the Gulf' as booming in an emerging multi-polar world sets a very high bar for the scholars who sustain the function of this anomaly in the Global South. Recognizing that a variegated propaganda-for-sale is at play in the production of an ideol...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Middle East critique Vol. 34; no. 2; pp. 181 - 202
Main Authors: Blumi, Isa, Alloul, Jaafar
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Routledge 03.04.2025
Subjects:
Capitalism
Cultural Anthropology
Development
GCC
Gulf
Gulf Studies
Human Geography
Imperialism
International Relations
kulturantropologi
kulturgeografi
Mellanösterns språk och kulturer
Middle East
Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures
Political Economy
Political Science
Race
statsvetenskap
West Asia
ISSN:1943-6149, 1943-6157, 1943-6157
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The multi-vector development discourse about 'the Gulf' as booming in an emerging multi-polar world sets a very high bar for the scholars who sustain the function of this anomaly in the Global South. Recognizing that a variegated propaganda-for-sale is at play in the production of an ideological Gulf narrative, we have invested in this Special Issue, titled 'The Gulf and the World.' We have sought to identify the prevailing hegemonic discourse devised to render palpable the geopolitical relationship between a Western capitalist project and their allies in the Gulf. The resulting findings situate the myth of a selective group of Western-leaning states circulating within often disparate, even rival, scholarly approaches. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have not only monopolized scholarly notions of the Gulf, but also engendered in developmental terms a disjointed, if not crumbling, MENA region. At this juncture, its character as a contemporary 'anomaly' carries concrete function in creating a new analytical prism that reinserts the Gulf's strategic value as a particular operational node for the imperialist fracturing of the wider region in terms of socio-cultural, economic and political cohesion. As hinted throughout, scholarship on the Gulf contraption requires new frames of analysis.
ISSN:1943-6149
1943-6157
1943-6157
DOI:10.1080/19436149.2025.2457271