ABSTRACT Scouting was one of the first modern ‘sports’ to reach Saudi Arabia, with the first boy scout troops dating back to 1943. Yet scouting has largely escaped the attention of historians and social scientist who study the Arab Gulf states, since this uniformed youth movement does not conform to the ‘tribal modern’ identity that is today propagated and researched within the region, as found, for example, in the discourse on heritage sports. How did a Saudi scouting movement take root, importing what is still largely perceived to be a Western cultural practice, identified with a white British-North American middle class? The research demonstrates that the scouting movement was able to take hold in the region by negotiating the universal ideals of modernity and internationalism of the scouting movement with more particular understandings of nationalism and social reform. Following the trajectories of the early Saudi scouting movement, the analysis traces how the conception of what constitutes ‘modern’ evolved from an understanding that emphasizes universal traits, toward a negotiated and particularised interpretation of what ‘modern’ means and should mean in the local context of Saudi Arabia.

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锻炼身体，行使公民权：关于沙特阿拉伯侦察的历史

摘要童军运动是最早到达沙特阿拉伯的现代“运动”之一，第一批童军部队的历史可以追溯到1943年。然而，自从这个穿制服的青年时代以来，童军运动在很大程度上逃脱了研究阿拉伯海湾国家的历史学家和社会科学家的关注。运动与今天在该区域内传播和研究的“部落现代”身份不符，例如，在关于传统体育的论述中就发现了这一点。沙特侦察运动如何扎根，并在很大程度上仍被认为是西方文化习俗的进口，被确定为白人的英中北美中产阶级？研究表明，侦查运动能够通过对侦查运动的现代性和国际主义的普遍理想进行谈判，并具有对民族主义和社会改革的更具体的理解。按照沙特阿拉伯早期侦察运动的轨迹，该分析追溯了“现代”概念的概念如何从强调普世特质的理解演变为对“现代”的含义和在当地情况下应该指的经过协商和具体的解释沙特阿拉伯。