FORUM FOR ANTHROPOLOGY AND CULTURE ANTROPOLOGICHESKIJ FORUMRUS | ENG
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Antropologicheskij forum, 2019, no. 43
Mikhail A. Rodionov Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), Russian Academy of Sciences Abstract: Three books published in 2017 address the current Yemeni Crisis. The first is written by Helen Lackner, a British political and social anthropologist with long-term expertise in Yemeni affairs. She considers the critical phase of the relationship between traditional social strata (with inherited social statuses) and modern structures (with acquired statuses) as the core reason for the multifaceted (political, social, economic, and ecological) crisis. The second book authored by Austrian anthropologist Marieke Brandt is focused on the local tribes as the hub of a traditional social hierarchy or, more precisely, on the Zaydi adherents of the sayyid al-Houthi clan. The last book, edited by ex-British Diplomat Noel Brehony, is a multidisciplinary collective research project on Hadhramaut, an important cultural area of South Arabia; it is the first fruit of the Hadhramaut Research Centre, launched in 2013 to promote local studies for international academics and the Hadhramaut population, the Hadramis — both in diaspora and at home. The Kenia-born Hadhrami Abdalla Bujra, the spiritus movens of this project, the doyen of the social anthropology of Hadhramaut, gathered several generations of international scholars under one cover. Three relevant issues on Yemeni turmoil, by Helen Lackner, Marieke Brandt, and the team led by Noel Brehony respectively, allow us to draw the conclusion that the present disaster may be regarded as a crisis of social, cultural and religious identity involving traditional strata of local societies with their flexible adaptability, on the one hand, and the modern entities on the other. Keywords: Yemen, Hadhramaut, social and cultural identity, a stratified society, migration. Acknowledgements: The publication of this review is supported by Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR) within the project 19-09-0039-A “Hadramawt, a story of self-identification (6th c. CE to 1967)”, 2019–2022. To cite: Rodionov M., ‘Yemeni Crisis: Various Approaches to a Problem: A Review of Helen Lackner, Yemen in Crisis: Autocracy, Neo-Liberalism and the Disintegration of a State. London: Saqi Books, 2017, 330 pp.; Marieke Brandt, Tribes and Politics in Yemen: A History of the Houthi Conflict. London: Hurst & Co Publishers, 2017, 466 pp.; Noel Brehony (ed.), Hadhramaut and its Diaspora: Yemeni Politics, Identity and Migration. London; New York: I. B. Tauris, 2017, 254 pp.’, Antropologicheskij forum, 2019, no. 43, pp. 202–210. doi: 10.31250/1815-8870-2019-15-43-202-210 URL: http://anthropologie.kunstkamera.ru/files/pdf/043/rodionov.pdf |
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