Bordering Zubara: oil politics, the 1937 Qatari-Bahraini conflict, and the making of a modern Arabian (Persian) Gulf Borderland

Abstract

This study of the 1937 Qatari-Bahraini conflict over Zubara is a cultural history of, and border studies approach to, one of the most important border contests of the Gulf during the oil concession era. No scholarship has treated this historical region on the northwest coast of Qatar, which is home to the Fort of Zubara, the nation’s most renowned fortress landmark, and a UNESCO world heritage site, as a borderland. However, this article argues that these sites are the legacy of the 1937 conflict, which more than any previous quarrel over Zubara, led to the development of a political culture of bordering. This article examines the emergence of this bordering in its physical, e.g. customs and border guard regime, and cultural-political, e.g. the building of the Fort of Zubara, aspects. Moreover, it treats the 1937 Zubara conflict as part and parcel of an interwar era of global bordering, making comparative reference to Central European borderlands, in addition to other border studies research, as part of the theoretical and analytical framework. This article aims to contribute to a scant literature on borderlands and bordering processes in the Arabian Gulf.