"In a time of seemingly ‘unresolvable conflicts’ in south-west Asia and beyond, this outstanding collection foregrounds the aspirations and critiques of Yemenis living through conflict and revolution—calling for, and demonstrating, how a political anthropology committed to the preoccupations of research participants can bring visibility to their crucial generative work of imagining and striving for alternative futures."—Alice Wilson, author of Afterlives of Revolution: Everyday Counterhistories in Southern Oman
"A sophisticated and fascinating volume that demonstrates the complexity, tensions, and layers of political concepts. Grounded in ethnography and focused on Yemen, the volume’s analytical reach provides a model for anthropological writing and theory."—Mandana Limbert, City University of New York Graduate Center
"The authors provide trenchant insights into how Yemenis try to manage their lives despite the disruptions of war and displacement."—Anne Meneley, author of Tournaments of Value: Sociability and Hierarchy in a Yemeni Town
Description
At a time when Yemen has been ravaged by a decade of war and subject to myriad political and military interventions, the essays in this collection serve as a timely reminder of the need for grounded anthropological study in even the harshest of circumstances. From tribesmen to refugees, revolutionaries to farmers, state workers to charity workers, intellectuals to the unemployed and the destitute, we learn of the everyday political languages through which people in the country live their lives. This volume is a call for an anthropology attuned not only to locally significant political concepts, but also to the ways in which people actively confront and reorient them while challenging their worlds and engaging the political imagination in a spirit of abiding critique. This concise collection is the fruit of decades of ethnographic fieldwork in Yemen and will be of interest to students and scholars seeking an intimate and nuanced account of life in the country.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Grounding Anthropological Critique
Ross Porter
1. “X”
Steven C. Caton
2. In/Security: Rethinking Uncertainty
and Refashioning Piety in a World of Ruins
Kamilia al-Eriani
3. Class: Not in Agrarian Yemen?
Martha Mundy
4. Honor: Beyond Glorious Deeds, an Ethos of Ordinary Insecurity
Luca Nevola
5. The State: Metaphorical and Material
Susanne Dahlgren
6. Refugee: Yemenis Navigating Humanitarianism
and Human Rights in the Afro-Asian Circuit
Nathalie Peutz and Angie Heo
7. Friendship: Ethical Engagements and Dilemmas
in Times of War and Conflict
Marina de Regt
About the Author
Ross Porter is a lecturer in the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter.
October 2025