PhD candidate
Thesis topic: The role of sociocultural dynamics in the rise and the fall of Oman's Imamate (1913–1959)
Qualifications: MA, MBA, Military Science Diploma
Supervisors: Dr Leon Goldsmith; Associate Professor James Headley
Email alhaf793@student.otago.ac.nz
The study aims to explore the role of sociocultural dynamics in the rise and fall of Oman's Imamate of 1913-1959. The research applies an ethnographic approach seeking new understandings of how sociocultural dynamics inside societies can facilitate both the eruption and decay of revolutions (and resultant polities) and their interlinkage with political, structural and environmental factors. Specifically to the inner Omani tribal society, it is argued that internal sociocultural dynamics were a crucial factor in revolutionary mobilization as an 'over-socializing' norm determiner, which also came to influence the political sphere of the Omani Imamate of 1913-59.
The study examines ethnographic data from previously untapped Omani archives and from interviews with key actors of the events of 1913-59. In this way the study seeks to construct a meaningful and accurate illustration of the social reality of the Imamate and test the common assumption, via the Omani case, that sociocultural dynamics and related social movements are a products of long historical processes.
Aflah is a member of the Middle East and Islamic Studies Aotearoa (MEISA) research group.