Abstract

“Oil, Onions, and Education: A Social History of Development in Oman from the 1950s to the 1980s” investigates Oman’s great social and economic transformation in the 20th century driven by oil exploration and exploitation. The Omani government refers to this period as al-Nahḍa [The Renaissance] and presents it as an incessant march of Sulṭān-led “progress.” By contrast, this dissertation uses the approaches of social history and critical political history to reveal that Oman’s developmentalist epoch is best understood as a massive project of state building divided into two phases: a conquest phase and a consolidation phase. The conquest phase and the beginning of the consolidation phase took place during the reign of Sulṭān Saʿīd bin Taymūr (r. 1932–1970). The conquest phase ended, and consolidation accelerated under Qābūs bin Saʿīd (r. 1970–2020). The work opens with a study of how the British-backed oil company Petroleum Development (Oman) worked with Saʿīd bin Taymūr to invade and conquer the Omani Imamate, forcibly unifying the coast and the interior of the country into one polity. It also focuses on Omanis outside the country during this period, and their support of revolutionary struggles inside the country. To foreground the history of ordinary people in Oman, the dissertation then examines three case studies of groups in Oman from the 1950s to the 1980s: oil workers of the Durūʿ tribe, farmers in the interior oasis of Nizwā, and teachers and educationalists spread out across the country. Their engagements with the social transformation fell along a spectrum. Oil workers used strikes to resist corporate exploitation and to force the government to respond to their needs, farmers in Nizwā faced a new state-imposed institution, the experimental farm, whose experts sought to transform the area’s agricultural production into part of a modern commercial economy. Within this coercive context, Nizwānī farmers organized and worked as best they could to create profitable businesses, but without interest in national development. On the opposite end of the spectrum, educators—including a large expatriate contingent—participated zealously in building a government education system, with Omani teachers and administrators viewing their work as a patriotic endeavor. For expatriate Arab teachers, mostly Egyptians, working in Oman brought remuneration and adventure. The Omani and foreign teachers and educationalists worked to fuse the Sultanate together ideologically by teaching Omanis that they were part of an Omani nation and part of the broader Arab world. The final chapter investigates the role of the Royal Oman Police in physically consolidating government power over the Sultanate as the first national police force in the country. Their ability to be everywhere, and to reach areas of the country like mountaintops and islands hitherto largely inaccessible to the state, made the people of Oman legible to the government. At the same time, this new presence also made the violent potential of the state legible to the people. Nonetheless, while Oman’s developmentalist period may have, in fact, been a coercive process, ordinary people in Oman contested and influenced its historical trajectory. At critical moments they resisted its force, repurposed its programs, or engaged with its agents and, in the process, helped form the Sultanate of Oman.

Committee Chair

Nancy Reynolds

Committee Members

Cassie Adcock; Laura Goffman; Mona Husain; Timothy Parsons

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Author's Department

History

Author's School

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Document Type

Dissertation

Date of Award

4-24-2026

Language

English (en)

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Available for download on Saturday, April 22, 2028

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