Presenter: Madihah Alfadhli and Bernardo Bátiz-Lazo (Northumbria)
Host/discussant: Daniel Castillo (Las Palmas)
Elites, Oil, and Economic Nationalism: The Darwish Al-Fakhro Family case in Qatar, 1935 to 1971
August 26, 2020, 10am German summer time
Abstract
Research in this paper departs from the study of imperial oil policy and the strategy of multinational companies in the Middle East, to consider how elites and nationalism intertwine with the formation of domestic reform. Specifically, how the efforts of the merchant Abdullah Al-Darwish Al-Fakhro, representative of the then ruler of Qatar (Ali bin Al-Thani, 1949 –1974), helped this oil dependent economy to gradually gain total control of its oil industry in 1971. Source material to compose this biography emerged from family papers of the Qatari commercial elites and the British National Archive. The story tells of the evolution of the Qatari oil industry from 1935 to 1971 with special attention to negotiations with multinational companies and foreign governments in the 1950s and 1960s.
Part of the Online Seminars in Business History series hosted by Gesellschaft fuer Unternehmensgeschichte
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