Baloch Mashkat (Muscat) and the Sultan Qaboos Era: Cultural Performance, Cosmopolitanism, and Translocal Consciousness

Abstract

Baloch cultural life in Muscat is a vivid part of Oman's national landscape as it has evolved from the time the late Sultan Qaboos took power. Although often typecast as soldiers or police officers, Omani Baloch are deeply integrated into a broad spectrum of professions and social milieus. These include communities of arts and letters at the heart of the Omani cultural renaissance championed by the late Sultan and embodied in institutions such as Royal Opera House, the Muscat International Film Festival, and the Oud Hobbyists Association. The many nuances to Baloch identity have led to a plurality of social spaces, from literary forums intertwined with South Asian intellectual spheres to ceremonial contexts in which Omanis of Baloch, Peninsular Arab, and East African heritage converge. Networks of patronage and transnational circulations of songs and poetry among Baloch attest to the longevity of Western Indian Ocean circuits of cultural exchange.