Donald Cole (anthropologist)


Donald Powell Cole is a noted anthropologist at the American University in Cairo. He joined the university in 1971. He is a member of the American Anthropological Association. Cole has studied Arab nomadic cultures, such as the Al Murrah, in his The Social and Economic Structure of the Āl Murrah: A Saudi Arabian Bedouin Tribe, his PhD dissertation at the University of California, Berkeley.
Cole, an American expat, currently resides in Cairo.

Academic positions

Assistant Professor, 1971–73; 1974–75
Associate Professor, 1975–86
Professor, 1986 to 2007
Emeritus Professor, 2007 onward
  • University of California, Berkeley
Acting Assistant Professor, Spring Quarter 1971
Visiting Assistant Professor, 1973–74
Visiting Associate Professor, Winter and Spring Quarters 1976
  • University of Texas, Austin
Visiting Associate Professor, Spring Semester 1983, plus several summer sessions
Visiting Scholar, Center for Middle East Studies, Spring Semester 1987
  • Georgetown University
Visiting Researcher, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Spring Semester 1995

Books

[file:Road to Islam (book cover).jpg|thumb|right|Cole's most recent book: "Road to Islam: From Texas to Saudi Arabia and Egypt."]
  • Road to Islām: From Texas to Saudi Arabia and Egypt / Donald Powell Cole. Cairo: Al-Madinah Press, 2010.
  • Bedouins of the Empty Quarter / Donald Powell Cole. New Jersey: Aldine Transaction, 2010.
  • Bedouin, settlers, and holiday makers : Egypt's changing northwest cast / Donald P. Cole, Soraya Altorki. 1998.
  • Investors and Workers in the Western Desert of Egypt: An Exploratory Survey / Donald Powell Cole, Naiem A. Sherbiny and Nadia Makary Girgis. Cairo: Cairo Papers in Social Science, Volume 15, Monograph 3. 1992.
  • Arabian oasis city : the transformation of ʻUnayzah / Soraya Altorki and Donald P. Cole. Austin : University of Texas Press, 1989.
  • Saudi Arabian Bedouin: An Assessment of their Needs / Donald Powell Cole and Saad Eddin Ibrahim. Cairo: Cairo Papers in Social Science, Volume 5, Monograph 1. 1978.
  • Nomads of the nomads : the Āl Murrah Bedouin of the Empty Quarter / Donald Powell Cole. 1975,

Other published works

  • 1971: "Al Murrah Bedouin: The 'Pure Ones' Rove Arabia’s Empty Sands". In Nomads of the World, 52–71. Washington, DC: The National Geographic Society.
  • 1973: "Bedouin of the Oil Fields". Natural History LXXXII:94–103.
  • 1973: "The Enmeshment of Nomads in Saudi Arabian Society: The Case of the Al Murrah". In Cynthia Nelson, The Desert and the Sown: Nomads in the Wider Society, 113–128. Berkeley: University of California, Institute of International Studies, Research Series, Number 21.
  • 1980: "Pastoral Nomads in a Rapidly Changing Economy: The Case of Saudi Arabia". In Timothy Niblock, Social and Economic Development in the Arab Gulf, 106–121. London: Croom Helm.
  • 1982: "Tribal and Non-Tribal Structures among the Bedouin of Saudi Arabia". Al-Abhath XXX:77–94.
  • 1984: "Alliance and Descent in the Middle East and the 'Problem' of Patrilateral Parallel Cousin Marriage". In Akbar S. Ahmed and David M. Hart, Islam in Tribal Societies: From the Atlas to the Indus, 169–186. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
  • 1984: "Modern Egypt". Discovery 8:8-12..
  • 1985: "The Bedouin in a Changing World". Cairo Today 6:23–31.
  • 1990: "Mujtama’a ma qabl an-naft fi al-jazirah al-‘arabiyyah: fawdah qabiliyyah am mujtama’a muraqab". Al-Mustaqbal al-‘arabi 11:41–53..
  • 1992: "Was Arabia Tribal? A Reinterpretation of the Pre-Oil Society.” Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies XV:71-87.
  • 1993: "Commerce et production dans le nord de l’Aarabie centrale: changement et development a 'Unayzah". In Riccardo Bocco, Ronald Jaubert and Francoise Metral, Steppes d’Arabies: Etats, pasteurs, agriculture et commerçants: le devinir des zones seches, 247–265. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France; Geneva: Cahiers de L'I.U.E.D..
  • 1994: "Private Sector Enterprises in Desert Development in Egypt". In Mohammed Atif Kishk, Land Reclamation and Development in Egypt, 401–414. Minia: Minia University Press.
  • 1996: "Land Tenure, Bedouin, and Development in the Northwest Coast". In Sustainable Development in Egypt: Current and Emerging Challenges, 108–110. Cairo: The American University in Cairo, Office of Graduate Studies and Research.
  • 1997: "Change in Saudi Arabia: A View from ‘Paris of Najd. In Nicholas S. Hopkins and Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Arab Society: Class, Gender, Power and Development, 29–52. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press..
  • 1997: Unayzah, le 'Paris du Najd': le changement en Arabie saoudite". Monde arabe: Maghreb-Machrek 156:3–22..
  • 1998: "Guide to the MT09 Libyan Bedouin File". HRAF Collection of Ethnography, Installment 47. New Haven: Human Relations Area Files.
  • 1998: "Agro-Pastoralism and Development in Egypt’s Northwest Coast". In Directions of Change in Rural Egypt, eds. Nicholas S. Hopkins and Kirsten Westergaard, 318-333. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press..
  • 1998: "The Northwest Coast: A Part of Rural Egypt?” In Nicholas S. Hopkins and Kirsten Westergaard, Directions of Change in Rural Egypt, 130–143. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press..
  • 1998: "Twenty Years of Desert Development in Egypt". Cairo Papers in Social Science 21:44–54..
  • 2000: "Production and Trade in North Central Arabia: Change and Development in 'Unayzah". In Martha Mundy and Basim Musallam, The Transformation of Nomadic Society in the Arab East, 145–159. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • 2001: "Saudi Arabia". In Melvin Ember and Carol R. Ember, Countries and their Cultures, 1927–1939. New York: Macmillan Reference.
  • 2002: "Riyadh". Encyclopedia of Urban Cultures, eds. Melvin Ember and Carol R. Ember, 4:38–45. Danbury, CT: Grolier.
  • 2003: Anthropological Quarterly 76:235–267.
  • 2005: "Al Murrah Tribes in the Days of King 'Abd al-'Aziz".
  • 2006: "New Homes, New Occupations, New Pastoralism: Al Murrah Bedouin, 1968–2003". In Dawn Chatty, Nomadic Societies in the Middle East and North Africa: Entering the 21st Century, 370–392. Leiden and Boston: Brill.
  • 2006: "Land and Identity among Awlad 'Ali Bedouin: Egypt's Northwest Coast". In Dawn Chatty, Nomadic Societies in the Middle East and North Africa: Entering the 21st Century, 634–653. Leiden and Boston: Brill..

Published academic interviews

  • 2000 Mark Allen Peterson. “The Long Walk II: ‘For as long as I can remember Anthropology has been reinventing itself’: An interview with Donald Powell Cole.” Nomadic Peoples 4:7-20.
  • 2002 Hussein Fahim. “Hadith anthrubulujiya maa duktur Donald Cole” . Journal of the Social Sciences. Kuwait: Kuwait University, Fall 2002.