New Book | The Saudi Social Awakening: Explaining Rapid Social Change
Saudi Arabia has witnessed remarkable societal change since the initiation of the 2017 social reforms, as long-standing restrictive social norms have rapidly given way to new freedoms. Drawing on a decade of ethnographic fieldwork, Masooda Bano shows how existing accounts underestimated the dynamism of both the Saudi state and Saudi society, and asks what the Saudi case can tell us about how rapid social change occurs.
In The Saudi Social Awakening: Explaining Rapid Social Change, Professor Bano examines societal change in Saudi Arabia since the initiation of the 2017 social reforms. Restrictive social norms associated with Wahhabi Salafism, a long-standing partner of the Saudi state, have rapidly given way, allowing for long-denied basic liberties, including gender mixing, entertainment options, and greater freedom to choose how to live one’s religion. Drawing on a decade of ethnographic fieldwork, Bano shows how existing studies underestimated both the dynamism of the Saudi state and, more importantly, Saudi society, and consequently the potential for rapid change.
Written as a public-facing book for a wider audience, The Saudi Social Awakening offers a rare insight into Saudi society while addressing two deeper intellectual questions: what triggers rapid institutional change in favour of liberal norms, and whether there is a universal decline in the appeal of rigid religious conservatism in the modern age.
Published by Bloomsbury.