ABSTRACT
Contemporary Arab Gulf monarchies are characterized not only by malls, skyscrapers and highways, but also by the widespread presence of certain animals, notably camels, horses, oryxes and falcons. However, this does not necessarily entail living examples, since the conditions for nding these in the wild have changed considerably. As visual representations, though, they can hardly be overlooked in urban space and there are various tailored oerings for humananimal encounters in so-called nature. Nevertheless, this animalscape is seldom addressed as an overall topic in secondary literature on the Gulf. In a loose allusion to Appadurai, I use here the expression animalscape as a shortcut to denote a policy-based management and media-enhanced presentation of certain heritage animals. Islamic Studies as well as Arabic Studies and Middle Eastern Studies have not yet systematically beneted from the animal turn in other elds of science – despite some important individual contributions on animals (like those of Akasoy 2007 and Eisenstein 2001). Hence, most of the secondary literature used in this chapter had to be taken from other Cultural Studies and personal impressions from several weeks of research in Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE in 2009 and 2010. However, the handling of animals by humans in modern Arab Gulf societies has hitherto been analyzed mainly within the framework of reinvented tradition and heritage management. This chapter puts more emphasis on continuities and fundamental changes in falconry, its iconic status and the related narrative of a vital link to nature. Although this contribution directs attention primarily to falcons, more specically but not exclusively in the UAE, it also tentatively discusses some broader implications of the animalscape. The term falcon is used here for a variety of birds of prey, irrespective of their ornithological dierences.
