The six Arab States of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are all monarchies, but their societies, economies and politi are organised primarily through kinship, in the form of extended families and tribes. No other region in the world consists of states so traditional in their organisation, developing at rates well above global averages, are ultra-modern in many other regards. The book examines the paradox of the persisting importance of family and tribe in the face of modernisation. It evaluates past and present roles of kinship in the GCC states, assesses the impacts of change, and speculates on likely future patterns of social, economic and political organisation. Contributors include Shaikha Hind bint Salman al-Khlifa, Salwa al-Khateeb, Fred H. Lawson, Mandana Limbert, James Onley, J. E. Peterson, Jean-Fraçois Seznec and Ali al-Tarrah.

This timely volume explores the impact of dramatic social change that has disrupted established patterns of family life and human development in the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council. It addresses several major deficits in knowledge regarding family issues in the Gulf countries, bringing a critical perspective to the emerging challenges facing families in this region. Lansford, Ben Brik, and Badahdah examine the role of urbanization, educational progress, emigration, globalization, and changes in the status of women on social change, as well as tackling issues related to marriage, fertility and parenthood, and family well-being. This book explores how family relationships and social policies can promote physical health, psychological well-being, social relationships, safety, cognitive development, and economic security in the Gulf countries, placing a unique emphasis on contemporary families in this region. Families and Social Change in the Gulf Region is essential reading for scholars from psychology, sociology, education, law, and public policy. It will also be of interest to graduate students in these disciplines.

[If only] Bran would stop acting weird....Probably he had a perfectly reasonable explanation for everything. I just couldn't imagine what it would be. When Britt's older brother, Bran, lands a summer job house-sitting for the Marquises, an elderly couple, it seems like a great opportunity. Britt and Bran have moved to Florida so their mother can finish college, and the house-sitting income will allow their mom to quit her job and take classes full-time. Having never lived in a real house before, Britt is thrilled. There's only one problem: Britt starts to suspect her family isn't supposed to be there. She's been noticing that Bran is acting weird and defensive -- he hides the Marquises' mail, won't let anyone touch the thermostat, and discourages Britt from meeting any of the neighbors. Determined to get to the bottom of things, Britt starts investigating and makes a startling discovery -- the Marquises aren't who Bran has led her and their mom to believe. So whose house are they staying in, and why has Bran brought them there? With unexpected twists and turns, award winner Margaret Peterson Haddix has again crafted a thriller that will grip readers until its stunning conclusion.

The lines between what constitutes migration and what constitutes human trafficking are messy at best. State policies rarely acknowledge the lived experiences of migrants, and too often the laws and policies meant to protect individuals ultimately increase the challenges faced by migrants and their kin. In some cases, the laws themselves lead to illegality or statelessness, particularly for migrant mothers and their children. Crossing the Gulf tells the stories of the intimate lives of migrants in the Gulf cities of Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Kuwait City. Pardis Mahdavi reveals the interconnections between migration and emotion, between family and state policy, and shows how migrants can be both mobilized and immobilized by their family relationships and the bonds of love they share across borders. The result is an absorbing and literally moving ethnography that illuminates the mutually reinforcing and constitutive forces that impact the lives of migrants and their loved ones—and how profoundly migrants are underserved by policies that more often lead to their illegality, statelessness, deportation, detention, and abuse than to their aid.

Michael Herb proposes a new paradigm for understanding politics in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. He critiques the theory of the rentier state and argues that we must put political institutions—and specifically monarchism—at the center of any explanation of Gulf politics. All in the Family provides a compelling and fresh analysis of the importance of monarchism in the region, and points out the crucial role of the ruling families in creating monarchal regimes. It addresses the issue of democratization in the Middle Eastern monarchies, arguing that the prospects for the gradual emergence of constitutional monarchy are better than is often thought.

Family remains the most powerful social idiom and one of the most powerful social structures throughout the Arab world. To engender love of nation among its citizens, national movements portray the nation as a family. To motivate loyalty, political leaders frame themselves as fathers, mothers, brothers, or sisters to their clients, parties, or the citizenry. To stimulate production, economic actors evoke the sense of duty and mutual commitment of family obligation. To sanctify their edicts, clerics wrap religion in the moralities of family and family in the moralities of religion. Social and political movements, from the most secular to the most religious, pull on the tender strings of family love to recruit and bind their members to each other. To call someone family is to offer them almost the highest possible intimacy, loyalty, rights, reciprocities, and dignity. In recognizing the significance of the concept of family, this state-of-the-art literature review captures the major theories, methods, and case studies carried out on Arab families over the past century. The book offers a country-by-country critical assessment of the available scholarship on Arab families. Sixteen chapters focus on specific countries or groups of countries; seven chapters offer examinations of the literature on key topical issues. Joseph’s volume provides an indispensable resource to researchers and students, and advances Arab family studies as a critical independent field of scholarship.

Asian Migrant Workers in the Arab Gulf States (edited by Masako Ishii, Naomi Hosoda, Masaki Matsuo and Koji Horinuki) examines how nationals and migrants construct new relationships in the segregated socioeconomic spaces of the region (namely, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates). Instead of assuming that segregation is disadvantageous for migrant workers, it emphasizes multiple aspects and presents various voices. In this way, the book tries to unfold the region’s segregated socioeconomic space, as well as its new forms of networking and connectedness, in order to understand how the various peoples coexist: a situation that often entails conflict and discrepancies between expectations and reality.