Iraq’s Oil Cultures before the Revolution by Dr. Nelida Fuccaro
Dr. Nelida Fuccaro
Dr Nelida Fuccaro presented the final lecture of the 2016-17 MBI Al Jaber Lecture Series on Thursday 15th June at the MBI Al Jaber Seminar Room. The lecture was co-hosted by the MBI Al Jaber Foundation and British Foundation for the Study of Arabia. Dr Fuccaro is a Reader in Modern History of the Middle East at SOAS and is interested in interdisciplinary and cross-regional approaches to the study of the region. Her research has focussed on the Gulf Arab States – Iraq and Syria – with particular reference to the social and cultural history of oil, urban history, violence, ethnicity, nationalism and frontier societies.
During her presentation and discussion of Iraq and its oil industry, Nelida asked the audience whether they thought oil was a blessing or a curse and then followed through with information that provided answers to that question. She covered the monarchical era and talked about oil life and culture of the 1940s and 50s, demonstrating how oil became a ‘monster of wealth’ generating social inequality, as well as being ‘magical’, providing a better future for some of the population in Kirkuk and the surrounding region.
Nelida is the author of several books: ‘The Other Kurds: Yazidis in Colonial Iraq’ and ‘Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf: Manama since 1800’. She has also been the guest editor of ‘Histories of Oil and Urban Modernity in the Middle East’, in Comparative Studies in South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (2013), and the editor of ‘Violence and the City in the Modern Middle East’ (2016).
Although this is the final lecture of the third MBI Al Jaber lecture series, we warmly welcome you to our lectures and events during the summer months. Please check our Forthcoming Events page for more information: click here
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