Research Paper
You will write a five-page long analysis on a historical document from the Qatar Digital Library-QDL. Our source will be a description of ‘Trucial Oman,’ which is part of a volume of excerpts from J. Lorimer’s Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf. As you will see, this material includes information on the region’s geographical limits, population, languages, trade, communications, topography, and resources, among others. These selections from Lorimer’s Gazetteer are illustrative of what Nelida Fuccaro calls the ‘new geographies of rule’ of the British Empire – the idea that in order to control the political destiny of the Persian Gulf, one must know the place. When writing this essay, I would like you to keep this idea in mind, as you will have to provide a critical analysis of the source.
The task is for you to annotate the primary source and develop a clear argument about the kinds of perspectives that we are getting from this source. As part of your annotation, you should contextualize the material in terms of its content as well as by thinking about its function as a vehicle of colonial knowledge production. In order to do this, you should support your analysis with information drawn from L. Potter’s “Society in the Gulf: Before and After Oil,” P. Risso’s “Cross-Cultural Perceptions of Maritime Violence,” and N. Fuccaro’s “Knowledge at the Service of the British Empire.” You should integrate evidence via quotes and paraphrasing from your primary source, the QDL, and the secondary sources we have read for class. You should ALWAYS CITE.
You should have a clear thesis statement in the introduction, which you should refer back to throughout your paper. You should also have a strong paragraph structure that flows logically and smoothly. Every paragraph should have a guiding idea followed by evidence that brings your primary source in conversation with the secondary literature. This essay should include a brief summary of the document, as well as an analysis of the source -why is it important / interesting? who wrote it, where and when? why are these observations important? what perspectives does it offer? what was going on at the time? what is it telling us that can help us understand a larger theme? What kind of insights are we getting?
