Asseel Al-Ragam. Book project: “Agents of Chance: Legacies, Encounters, and Urban Development in Twentieth Century Kuwait”, 20.10.2022, 5PM-7PM

Sciences Po, Room J 208, 13 rue de l’Université, 75007 Paris

In-person Seminar, Compulsory registration

The lecture presents a book project that revisits the connections between British indirect rule in Kuwait and development processes that ensured the growth of the urban center and its expansion beyond the town wall. By doing so, it explores the nexus between renewed British pledges to Kuwaiti sheikhs that increased the flow of British goods, loans, and services and development processes that consolidated power in the hands of a few urban notables. This
expands the analytical framework of Gulf studies beyond oil/urban development analysis and instead offers a nuanced reading of city growth situated within changes in the political structure of the Gulf and global networks, alliances, and practices established in the first decade of the twentieth century. The lecture presents the genesis of these ideas, the earliest actors that shaped them, and the motivations and reactions to these conditions.

Speaker

Asseel Al-Ragam, Visiting Fellow at CERI-Sciences Po, Associate Professor of Architecture College of Architecture, Kuwait University.

Asseel is an associate professor and the director of the Design Development and Research Lab at Kuwait University’s College of Architecture. Until recently, she held the positions of vice dean for academic affairs, research and graduate studies and director of the graduate program. After four years of administrative work, she was awarded a two-year sabbatical leave. She is a visiting scholar at CERI-Sciences Po, where her research focuses on public space planning that responds to the climate crisis. She is also working on a book project that revisits urban planning processes in Kuwait.

Collective Discussion