SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The aim of this study is to illustrate the various aspects of social and ethnic differentiation in Kuwait. In order to understand these aspects, the study will investigate two main elements: (1) analysing the origin and the current aspects of differentiation through time, i.e. 1710-1980, and (2) tracing the spatial aspects of socio-ethnic differentiation over the inhabited area of the country. The study as a whole is a contribution to social and spatial studies of Kuwait society. In addition, it also contributes to other branches of geography like social, urban and electoral geography as it examines related aspects of group segregation and other socio-ethnic aspects. The study consists of 7 chapters each of which examines separate aspects but all with one common feature in relation to the theme of the study. The first chapter is primarily an introduction, concerned with three main elements, i.e. the importance of such studies to Kuwait, the objective and approach to the study, and the relation of such studies to the field of social geography. Chapter two is a socio-geographical perspective about the area under study. Chapter three examines the aspects of differentiation in Kuwait since its appearance on the map of the Peninsula until the discovery of oil, i.e. 1710-1946. Chapter four keeps on the same approach of chapter three but for the oil era i.e. from the year 1946 until 1980. Chapter five is about the segregation of the groups over the inhabited area of Kuwait. It also involved a field work study in relation to the spatial aspects of differentiation in the oil era. Chapter six, follows the year of National Assembly elections and other related aspects, i.e. early features of legislative participation, voting potential of each group and election returns for the election years 1963-67, 1967-71, 1971-75 and 1975-76. Finally chapter seven gives a summary of findings and the conclusion of the study.