Journal of Arabian Studies Article Highlights Role of Georgetown University in Qatar and Its Partner Qatar Foundation in the Development of the Field of Gulf Studies

Qatar-based research has played a prominent role in the global development of the field of
Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Studies, finds an article published by scholars at Georgetown
University in Qatar (GU-Q) and Qatar National Library (QNL), two Qatar Foundation partner
institutions. Their article appears in the 10th anniversary of the top journal in the field, the
Journal of Arabian Studies (published by Routledge) and offers the first-ever comprehensive
survey of the global development of this field, including within the region itself, charting its
scholarly societies, centers, projects, publications, conference series, and graduate
programs since the mid-19th century. The authors show that the field of Gulf studies has
experienced a meteoric rise, especially in the last decade.
Dr. Gerd Nonneman, Professor and former Dean of GU-Q, and Dr. James Onley, Director of
Historical Research and Partnerships at QNL, co-authored the article, and serve as Editors
of this double-blind, peer-reviewed international scholarly journal. It is indexed by the Scopus
abstract and citation database, and accepts article submissions on the Arabian Peninsula, its
surrounding waters, and their connections with the western Indian Ocean from West India to
East Africa, from antiquity to the present day.
The findings show that GU-Q and QNL –– as well as other institutions within Qatar–– played
significant roles in the recent development of the field, and in increasing the amount of
research on Qatar. Qatar’s investment in preserving its history and providing resources for
research began with the Amiri Diwan’s Documents and Research Department in 1974 and
the National Museum in 1975, followed by other historical and cultural centers, but Qatar’s
first academic research center in the field was not established until 2007 by Qatar
Foundation partner GU-Q. The university’s Center for International and Regional Studies
(CIRS) quickly became “the leading social science hub in the region for the study of the
modern Gulf.” Other research centers in Qatar were subsequently established.
QNL’s contribution, through the Qatar Digital Library (www.QDL.qa), launched in 2014, has
been to place over two million pages of historical material on the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula
online for the world to access, including the British Library’s important Gulf collection.  This
has resulted in a major increase in the number of scholarly publications in the humanities
and social sciences focused on the region, Qatar in particular. Dr. Onley explains that “The
QDL is changing the way scholars and students research the history of the Gulf region.  It is
making the past more accessible than ever, leading to a sharp increase in the number of
exciting new historical studies on the Gulf –– the least-studied region in the Middle East.”
Dr. Nonneman notes that the history of the Journal of Arabian Studies began at the
University of Cambridge in 1974 as Arabian Studies (a humanities journal), and then moved
to the University of Exeter as New Arabian Studies in 1994, where it was published by the
Centre for Gulf Studies until 2004.  “When James and I re-launched the journal at Exeter in
2011, just before I moved to Doha, we expanded the scope beyond the humanities to
contemporary topics and social science research. I am particularly pleased at the increasing
number of authors from Qatar and the Gulf itself whose research we have been able to
publish.”

The article summarizes other major developments in the field, including the establishment of
the Gulf Studies Program and Center at Qatar University, with the first MA and Ph.D. in Gulf
studies in the MENA region; as well as several major research projects on the history of
Qatar undertaken by Msheireb Museums, UCL-Qatar, and the Qatar National Library, all
with the support of Qatar Foundation. As the newly published Journal of Arabian Studies
article illustrates, Qatar has become a central hub of knowledge production about the Gulf
and the Arabian Peninsula over the past decade.