Charity in Saudi Arabia Civil Society and Authoritarianism

In this innovative study of everyday charity practices in Jeddah, Nora Derbal employs a 'bottom-up' approach to challenge dominant narratives about state-society relations in Saudi Arabia. Exploring charity organizations in Jeddah, this book both offers a rich ethnography of associational life and counters Riyadh-centric studies which focus on oil, the royal family, and the religious establishment. It closely follows those who work on the ground to provide charity to the local poor and needy, documenting their achievements, struggles and daily negotiations. The lens of charity offers rare insights into the religiosity of ordinary Saudis, showing that Islam offers Saudi activists a language, a moral frame, and a worldly guide to confronting inequality. With a view to the many forms of local community activism in Saudi Arabia, this book examines perspectives that are too often ignored or neglected, opening new theoretical debates about civil society and civic activism in the Gulf. "This is a book about Saudi Arabian civil society. This might sound like an oxymoron. Saudi Arabia is widely considered an authoritarian Islamic state with little space for any civil initiative to maneuver in or to flourish. Indeed, the Saudi Arabian state monitors and controls the life of its citizens with a rigid iron fist and does not allow for autonomous civil society organizations with any democratic undertones. Yet, this book presents a different perspective from which to view and understand Saudi Arabian society, not from a top-down vantage point - of how the state plans and controls complex social and political situations - but bottom-up, from the point of view of "on the ground" civil society initiatives, such as charities and other volunteering groups, and the ways they act and react in face of diverse social events, initiate and follow in face of governmental power and politics. With a focus on the social and what is occurring in society, my research leads me to suggest a more nuanced picture of state-society relations and the agency of ordinary Saudis and non-Saudis in the kingdom. I began pondering these issues following my experience with the aid campaign after the Jeddah floods in 2009. It was this experience that led me to seek different analytical and conceptual tools for understanding Saudi Arabian society than the ones currently in use in academic research of this unique country, where royal power, Wahhabi religious scholarship and enormous oil wealth set an opaque facade that covers a complex and vibrant social life" -- Provided by publisher