Bahrain commemorates country's iconic moments and achievements
Issue 60
With this issue of our quarterly "Folk Culture Journal," dedicated to the same niche approach, we have completed our fifteenth year of consistent publication and are ready to step into the new year with confidence and ambition.
Looking back on the years that have passed, we realise that they appear to have passed in the blink of an eye, despite the significant responsibilities and challenges that generally accompany each new release. Only those who dedicate themselves to spreading the word of enlightenment can truly appreciate this sensation.
But what if the message is intended to be scholarly and intellectual in nature? What if it seeks to record and safeguard culture while also sharing its wealth of knowledge with individuals from all walks of life?
The "Folk Culture Journal" has every reason to be proud of the output it has achieved as a result of its investment in academic and editorial staff in order to achieve more readership.
We intend to bring together senior academics with practical expertise in the field with authors who have written extensively on the topic of folk culture from both the East and the West.
In order to encourage theoretical research on folk culture, we aim to entice leading thinkers and authors from both the East and the West to contribute to the field.
We were thrilled to be able to stipulate that each issue include a section devoted to Bahraini and Arab Gulf creative heritage. Over the past year, we've dedicated a special section in each issue to introducing a work of folk art, and we've been able to attract writers who can help establish our reputation and provide us with groundwork in the field of folk culture despite the paucity of this type of content and scholars who wade through it.
We do not exaggerate when we say that, given the COVID pandemic, we were able to bridge 70% of the gap in sending hard copies to 165 countries throughout the world over the first eight months of this year through uninterrupted website uptime.
Before the end of each year, we receive a report from the Arabic digital database (Arcif) in Amma, Jordan, one of the initiatives of e-Marefa, which is a comprehensive database that provides citations of peer-reviewed academic journals in the Arab world. It is overseen by a council of several Arab and international bodies, including the UNESCO Regional Office for Education in Arab Countries in Beirut, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (ESCWA), the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, and a scientific committee of Arab and European experts.
For the year 2022, among the 5100 Arab scientific or research journals covering a wide range of fields, this study commends the journal for publishing material that meets the accepted scientific criteria in the field of humanities and social sciences.
For details of the standards and the classification policy of the journals, please visit the Arcif website at http://emarefa.net/arcif.
We can declare with great pride that a peer-reviewed journal from Bahrain dedicated entirely to folk culture has achieved an extraordinary international reputation after fifteen years of painstaking editing, content selection, and academic arbitration.
The journal is developed with the highest technological standards, completely illustrated on paper in vibrant colours using the most advanced techniques, and then all of its content is uploaded to a website that attracts millions of visitors from all over the world. The effectiveness of delivery and distribution systems, as well as the stability that rewards writers and partners, make this feasible.
His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, King of Bahrain, is our kind patron who kept the hope flag flying so that we could keep going even when it seemed impossible.
We have had every opportunity to flourish and reach a significant readership under the guidance of our honourable king, conveying the message of Bahraini folklore to the rest of the world through a strategic partnership with the non-profit International Organization for Folklore (IOV). They put in the effort it takes, and their endeavours yield excellent results.
Our journal has grown in popularity in the Arab world and around the world as a result of that caring and generous hand that is always there to help and support. This is a well-deserved accomplishment in the prosperous reign of His Majesty, yet it is only a minor part of the monument that he is creating.
Ali Abdullah Khalifa
Editor-in-Chief