The Discursive Construction of National and Tribal Identities in Saudi Arabia: A Discourse-Historical Approach

Abstract

In Saudi Arabia, modern statehood coexists with longstanding tribal affiliations. Both national and tribal identities function as prominent discursive constructs through which members of Saudi tribal communities articulate their sense of belonging. This thesis draws mainly on Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) as the overarching framework, while also employing tools from Corpus Linguistics (CL) and Multimodal Critical Discourse Studies (MCDS), to examine the discursive construction of Saudi national and tribal identities in the context of contemporary national reforms and nation-rebuilding efforts driven by the Saudi Vision 2030 policies. It investigates the construction and recontextualisation of discourses on national identity from top-down and bottom-up perspectives, identifying intertextual and interdiscursive relations between discourses produced at the institutional and grassroot levels. It also explores bottom-up discursive constructions of tribal identities to understand how Saudi individuals with tribal affiliations position their national and tribal belongings relative to one another.