Book contents
- A History of Jeddah
- A History of Jeddah
- Copyright page
- Maps
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Transliteration and Terminology
- 1 Introduction: Why Jeddah
- 2 Between Sea and Land: Jeddah through the Ages
- 3 The Changing Faces of Jeddah
- 4 The Changing Urban Space of Jeddah
- 5 Solidarity and Competition: The Socio-Cultural Foundations of Life in Jeddah
- 6 The Economic Lifelines of Jeddah: Trade and Pilgrimage
- 7 Governing and Regulating Diversity: Urban Government in Jeddah
- 8 The Disappearance and Return of Old Jeddah: On the Temporality of Translocal Relations
- Bibliography
- Index
8 - The Disappearance and Return of Old Jeddah: On the Temporality of Translocal Relations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 February 2020
- A History of Jeddah
- A History of Jeddah
- Copyright page
- Maps
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Transliteration and Terminology
- 1 Introduction: Why Jeddah
- 2 Between Sea and Land: Jeddah through the Ages
- 3 The Changing Faces of Jeddah
- 4 The Changing Urban Space of Jeddah
- 5 Solidarity and Competition: The Socio-Cultural Foundations of Life in Jeddah
- 6 The Economic Lifelines of Jeddah: Trade and Pilgrimage
- 7 Governing and Regulating Diversity: Urban Government in Jeddah
- 8 The Disappearance and Return of Old Jeddah: On the Temporality of Translocal Relations
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This chapter sketches Jeddah’s transformation from the mid-twentieth to the early twenty-first century. Old Jeddah transformed from a slowly expanding town centre to an urban slum. Only the registration as a World Heritage Site in 2014 reversed this trend. Today, trade and pilgrimage are still important for Jeddah’s economy. However, most of the trade passes through a large container port in Southern Jeddah, and pilgrims are ferried directly from a special terminal at Jeddah’s international airport to Mecca. They no longer pass through the city and have only recently been invited back as tourists. The renewed interest in the old city as a cultural heritage site has made it central to local and Saudi Arabian contests over identity. While ‘strangers’ no longer can integrate easily, the cosmopolitan heritage is celebrated. At the same time, inhabitants of former suburbs also lay claim to the urban history. The ongoing debate about the historical identity of old Jeddah thus reflects wider debates within Saudi Arabian society.
Keywords
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- Information
- A History of JeddahThe Gate to Mecca in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, pp. 328 - 344Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020