Terraforming Tabuk: Green Transformation in Saudi Arabia

My research examines green transformation in the Middle East. My case study is 'Neom' a purportedly sustainable economic zone and urban development project under construction in Saudi Arabia. I frame Neom as part of the Saudi state's legacy of 'terraforming' a term I borrow from science fiction to describe the application of technology

and infrastructure to make seemingly barren territory habitable and economically productive. Neom goes against the grain of development trajectories on the Arabian Peninsula. In both popular imagination and academic literature, Saudi Arabia is seen through the lens of its oil-dominated economy. Indeed, oil wealth has been

used to explain most aspects of life, from the subordination of women to the state's bloated bureaucracy, its religious institutions, and compliant citizens. At the same time, academic literature on 'green transition' and 'sustainable development' has typically clustered around Western and democratic states in the global north. Less well

documented, then, are the possibilities and challenges of green transformation led by non-democratic states in the global south. My project fills those gaps by documenting the obstacles and possibilities of green development in Saudi Arabia. I will harness a bricolage of interdisciplinary research methodologies. Drawing on ethnography, and archival

research, my thesis will open new knowledge frontiers for human geography, climate change, and the geographies of green transformation