Publications
Traditional Arts in Southern Arabia. Music and Society in Sohar, Sultanate of Oman
Dieter Christensen & Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco
This book describes and situates the arts and its practitioners in Sohar, a coastal town in the Sultanate of Oman. It analyzes the practice of the arts in society, the underlying concepts, the social networks involved, and the changes that have taken place therein. It resulted from several periods of fieldwork between 1985 and 2006 during which the authors studied the arts in performance and their social role in Sohar.
A wealth of cultural forms thrive in the Arabian Peninsula, and in particular in the coastal areas of the Arab Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the Arab Sea. In Sohar, as in the rest of the Arabian Peninsula, music, dance and poetry in performance, embody diverse ethnic identities and historical trajectories. As an integral part of daily life, the arts are also instrumental in maintaining the equilibrium of a multicultural society and adapting local communities to the processes of modernization and globalization.
Traditional Arts in Southern Arabia. Music and Society in Sohar, Sultanate of Oman (Intercultural Music Studies 14. A Series of the Department of Ethnomusicology Institute for Music Research Julius-Maximilian University of Wurzburg) | Publisher: VWB-Verlag fur Wissenschaft und Bildung, Berlim | Released: 2009 | ISBN: 978-3-86135-644-8 | Size: 17 x 24,5 cm | Pages: 248 | Language: English | Hardcover (2 audio CD, 1 DVD)
