Book contents
- Being Young, Male and Saudi
- Being Young, Male and Saudi
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction and Background
- 1 What Is Saudi? Identity, Religiosity and Generational Divides
- 2 The Saudi ‘Social Contract’ Under Strain: Employment, Housing and Healthcare
- 3 The New Media Revolution, Public Opinion and the Relationship between the Governing and the Governed
- 4 Education, Societal Transformation and Globalization
- 5 Masculinity, Gender Relations and Marriage
- 6 Distrust, Fault Lines and Recreation
- 7 Saudi Vision 2030 and National Development
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - What Is Saudi? Identity, Religiosity and Generational Divides
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2019
- Being Young, Male and Saudi
- Being Young, Male and Saudi
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction and Background
- 1 What Is Saudi? Identity, Religiosity and Generational Divides
- 2 The Saudi ‘Social Contract’ Under Strain: Employment, Housing and Healthcare
- 3 The New Media Revolution, Public Opinion and the Relationship between the Governing and the Governed
- 4 Education, Societal Transformation and Globalization
- 5 Masculinity, Gender Relations and Marriage
- 6 Distrust, Fault Lines and Recreation
- 7 Saudi Vision 2030 and National Development
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In the second decade of the twenty-first century new challenges proliferate, including socioeconomic pressures and regional conflicts. As young Saudi men enter a rapidly changing world, one of the core questions likely to shape the coming decades is the issue of identity. However, national identity remains a contested and complex issue. When I posed the question ‘What is Saudi?’ to my focus groups I was frequently provided with vague definitions or answers with varying degrees of disagreement amongst group members as to what actually constitutes ‘Saudi’. Whilst the majority of young men I surveyed agreed that a Saudi national identity exists, the coherence of this national identity is contested. This chapter discusses the key issue of identity as it relates to national and personal notions of identity, religiosity and generational divides.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Being Young, Male and SaudiIdentity and Politics in a Globalized Kingdom, pp. 17 - 56Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019