Ajam Podcast #16: Persian Gulf Modernities Before Oil

Ajam Media Collective Podcast

In this episode, Rustin speaks with Lindsey Stephenson, who is currently conducting postgraduate research at Princeton University, and the new host of Ajam's Indian Ocean podcast series. The Indian Ocean series explores topics related to the Islamo-Arabic and Persianate world from the perspective of the Indian Ocean littoral and the people who traversed its waters. These conversations aim to rethink narratives of history and culture, which have been traditionally boxed in by land-based territorial demarcations and regional studies frameworks. This series invites listeners to imagine the complex interconnectedness of life from East Africa to Southeast Asia and beyond. In the first Indian Ocean series episode, Dr. Stephenson discusses her research on pre-oil mobility and modernity in the Persian Gulf, as well as its connections to Indian Ocean at large. While many people think that modernity came to the Gulf when oil was discovered at the beginning of the twentieth century, Lindsey demonstrates that global markets, labor demands, and capital from the date and pearling industries led to massive changes in the social, political, and legal spheres of the Persian Gulf several decades earlier.