Category Archives: Development

Tribal Mediation in Yemen

Anthropology/Sociology, Development, Gender and Sexuality, Tribalism, Yemen


Community cleaning of cistern in al-Ahjur, 1979; photograph by Daniel Varisco

TRIBAL MEDIATION IN YEMEN AND ITS IMPLICATIONS TO DEVELOPMENT

by NAJWA ADRA, AAS WORKING PAPERS IN SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY
2010, Volume 19: 1–17.

Introduction

An international phenomenon that has captured the interest of scholars and international development organizations is a continued tendency to resolve conflict through indigenous methods rather than in state courts (Chirayath et al.; Corrin Care 2000; Syria-News.com; UNDP). In Yemen, as in countries as diverse as Kenya and the Solomon Islands, traditional justice is often perceived as familiar, transparent, and participatory. Its focus is reconciliation rather than punishment (Dempsey and Coburn 2010; Dimitrijevic 2006). Specifically in Yemen there is considerable flexibility and adaptability in indigenous tribal procedures and decisions, more so than one usually finds in state justice systems, and decisions are restitutive rather than coercive. Furthermore, indigenous dispute mediation, where fi nes are shared by the entire community, is less costly than the formal legal system. On the other hand, there are concerns that traditional justice may perpetuate social hierarchies by favoring the powerful or discriminating against women (Corrin Care 2000; Kameri-Mbote 2005; Kollapen 2005; Tripp n.d.). In Yemen, as elsewhere, “local strongmen” may co-opt traditional mechanisms by using force in ways that would not have been permitted historically (Dempsey and Coburn 2010). Political scientists worry that resort to traditional justice may undermine state sovereignty.

In this article, I explore these issues as they apply to self-identified tribal communities in Yemen’s Central Highlands through case studies of mediation that I collected during extensive fieldwork between 1978 and 2005 in al-Ahjur. Continue reading Tribal Mediation in Yemen →

2011 RIFT VALLEY INSTITUTE FIELD COURSES

Anthropology/Sociology, Conferences and Talks, Development, Environment, Ethiopia, Somalia, Travel


Dhow near Lamu at sunset

2011 RIFT VALLEY INSTITUTE FIELD COURSES:
SUDAN, HORN OF AFRICA AND GREAT LAKES

SUMMARY

This year’s Rift Valley Institute field courses stress the historical background to political developments in the region: the two-state future in Sudan, the effect of recent and upcoming elections in the Great Lakes, and the continuing challenges to political evolution in the countries of the Horn of Africa. The courses are seminar-based, one-week, high-intensity events to be held between May and July. Faculty includes internationally-known regional specialists, researchers and civil society activists from Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, and the DRC.

The application deadline for all courses is Monday 28 February. You can apply online here.

Summaries of each course are included below. Prospectuses containing further details are attached to this message and can be downloaded from www.riftvalley.net/courses. (Or write to courses@riftvalley.net.)

DATES AND GENERAL INFORMATION

Dates for this year’s courses are as follows:

The Sudan Course, Wednesday 25 May to Tuesday 31 May, in Rumbek, Southern Sudan.

The Horn of Africa Course, Saturday 4 to Friday 10 June in Lamu, Kenya.

The Great Lakes Course, Saturday 9 July to Friday 15 July in Bujumbura, Burundi.

The courses are intensive, graduate-level, residential programmes. They are designed for local and expatriate peacekeepers, aid workers, diplomats, researchers, campaigners, business people and journalists.Taught by leading regional and international specialists, the courses provide a fast-track introduction to the history, political economy and culture of a country or region, challenging assumptions and offering new perspectives on politics, development and other current issues. Continue reading 2011 RIFT VALLEY INSTITUTE FIELD COURSES →

Iraqi Voices Project

Development, Immigration Issues, Iraq, Iraq War, Poetry


Photo of Khawla Hadi, Kimberly Wedeven Segall and Marwa al-Mtowaq. Iraqi Voices Panel, March 2009; photo by Luke Rutan, Seattle Pacific University.

Iraqi Voices Project: Poetry Workshops, Alternative History, and Community Awareness

by Kimberly Wedeven Segall

The dead . . .
come in shifts . . .
in our dreams . . .
over the houses we left behind.

–Dunya Mikhail, The War Works Hard

How can universities work alongside communities to build understanding of the Iraqi refugee crisis? Historically, Iraq as a state was established in 1920, centered on Baghdad, and controlled first by the British and then by Iraqi governments. As the force of the state made demands upon the people, it caused its residents “to rethink existing political identities, values, and interests,” to engage in “strategies of cooperation, subversion, and resistance,” [1] as Charles Tripp argues, and to construct narratives “to understand and to justify their political engagement.” [2]

How do memories challenge the narratives the West has presented on Iraq? How does family memory record and preserve history, after so much history has been destroyed in the post-occupation loss of valuable historical records and objects from Iraq’s museums?

The Iraqi Voices Project, 2008-2009, was designed as a workshop forum. Reading and responding to Iraqi poetry, the workshop created a forum for telling stories of displacement in Iraq and building awareness of the challenges in relocating in Seattle, Washington. Continue reading Iraqi Voices Project →

Heroic, Female and Muslim

Development, Gender and Sexuality, Islamophobia, Somalia, Terrorism Issue



Dr. Hawa Abdi runs a hospital in Somalia and stands up to extremists there; photograph by Casey Kelbaugh for The New York Times.

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, The New York Times, December 15, 2010

What’s the ugliest side of Islam? Maybe it’s the Somali Muslim militias that engage in atrocities like the execution of a 13-year-old girl named Aisha Ibrahim. Three men raped Aisha, and when she reported the crime she was charged with illicit sex, half-buried in the ground before a crowd of 1,000 and then stoned to death.

That’s the extremist side of Islam that drives Islamophobia in the United States, including Congressional hearings on American Muslims that House Republicans are planning for next year.

But there’s another side of Islam as well, represented by an extraordinary Somali Muslim woman named Dr. Hawa Abdi who has confronted the armed militias. Amazingly, she forced them to back down — and even submit a written apology. Glamour magazine, which named Dr. Hawa a “woman of the year,” got it exactly right when it called her “equal parts Mother Teresa and Rambo.”

Dr. Hawa, a 63-year-old ob-gyn who earned a law degree on the side, is visiting the United States to raise money for her health work back home. A member of Somalia’s elite, she founded a one-room clinic in 1983, but then the Somalian government collapsed, famine struck, and aid groups fled. So today Dr. Hawa is running a 400-bed hospital. Continue reading Heroic, Female and Muslim →

Loving Yemen

Afghanistan, Development, Journalism and Media, Osama Bin Laden, Terrorism Issue, Yemen


Yemen is not quite the desert journalists dream up

The journalistic war talk on terror took a sidestep over the past week or so as commentators sought to tweak the Wikileaks for all they could be imagined to be worth. Here was cable-ready proof that diplomats do not believe exactly what they say in public, that rulers are not always stable and “secret” communication may be secret for a reason. Ah, yes, diplomats with no clothing. But now it’s back to Al Qaeda. In a recent commentary for The Christian Science Monitor, a former senior international correspondent for CNN, Walter Rodgers, weighs in on Al Qaeda in Yemen.

The result is a prime example of run-of-the-treadmill sinthetic (spelling intended) reportage. All the right people are quoted, those who actually know something about Yemen. This includes a former ambassador, Barbara Bodine, a historian, Bernard Haykel and a young political scientist, Gregory Johnsen. Each is granted a short quote, although the reader has no idea what the full context of each comment was. So Ambassador Bodine at some point said “The issue is geography,” which clearly needs explanation. Unfortunately Rodgers flunks his geography lesson. Yemen is not “nearly all mountainous desert.” The only true desert areas in Yemen are along the coast and entering the Arabian desert, not in the mountain valleys and plateaus.

The journalist’s geographical blunders are equaled by his historical ignorance. Continue reading Loving Yemen →

Building Southern Sudan

Anthropology/Sociology, Development, Folklore and Proverbs, Sudan



Building southern Sudan through promotion of our history and culture

Dr. Jok Madut Jok, New Sudan Vision, October 15, 2010

(New York) – To be a nation means having a citizenry that takes pride in citizenship in “South Sudan” first and in tribal citizenship second. Such a nation can no longer assume that shared interests alone will continue to unite us. So far, our struggle to wrestle our freedom from the grips of the Khartoum-based successive governments has been the most unifying force for South Sudan. Now that this struggle has seen some success, what will unite us is the desire to build a strong nation together, and such a nation will need a shared identity. Such a shared identity will need to be harnessed, it needs to be politically constructed, and it is our task to forge it.

To this end, I envision my task as undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture and Heritage as joining a collective effort with the minister, the staff of the ministry and other branches of GOSS to set a policy for constructing our nation’s identity.

A solution begins with the correct identification of the nature of the problem. The most significant enemy of South Sudan’s cohesion, national loyalty and the citizens’ pride in their nation will be a growing sense of exclusion from the national platform, media, government programs and access to services. Any citizen who will feel excluded will never develop that important sense of pride in his/her nation. A starting point to addressing the feeling of exclusion is to state the obvious, that South Sudan belongs to all South Sudanese; it does not belong to any ethnic, religious or political group. Continue reading Building Southern Sudan →

Raising Dust in Palestine

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Books You Should Read, Development, Music and Dance, Palestine, Photography


Sword dance at a Bedouin wedding in Palestine, early 1900s; Rowe 2010, opposite p. 116

We hear so much about the political turmoil between Palestinians and Israelis that the traditional culture and its transformation are all but forgotten. Bombs continue to go off or be dropped, settler slabs destabilize the opportunity for a variety of people to live together, hawks and doves flitter away in a rhetorical fog. Yet there is movement, especially in dance. Nicholas Rowe, a choreographer and dancer from Australia has recently published a moving portrait of the changing dance tradition among Palestinians, with a focus on how dance reflects political stalemate and obstacles. This is his Raising Dust: A Cultural History of Dance in Palestine (London: I. B. Tauris, 2010).

A brief description of the book is provided by the publisher: Continue reading Raising Dust in Palestine →

Arabian Nights and Daze

Architecture, Books You Should Read, Development, Sanaa, Travel, Yemen, Zaydi


Bayt al-Hilali. Lighted middle floor was Wyatt’s home in Sanaa,Yemen (1970-72); Photo by Peggy Crawford (1988)


Announcing Susan C. Wyatt’s new book: Arabian Nights and Daze: Living in Yemen with the Foreign Service

Is Yemen Really a Hotbed of Terrorism? “No,” says Author.

Arabian Nights and Daze Evokes a Friendlier Yemen than the Media Presents

Americans today have a negative image of Yemen and its people in the aftermath of media focus on radical Islam and terrorist activities in that country. Susan Clough Wyatt’s Arabian Nights and Daze: Living in Yemen with the Foreign Service provides timely insights into this vulnerable country, its history and culture, and the enormous challenges Yemen faces today. Arabian Nights and Daze has been selected as part of the Memoirs and Occasional Papers Series of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST) in Arlington, Virginia.

Journey back to 1970 when Wyatt and her Foreign Service officer husband reopened the U.S. diplomatic mission to the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) after its closure at the time of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Arriving only eight years after progressive revolutionaries ousted a thousand-year-old dynasty of conservative Shiite Muslim imams, they found the mission in a shambles. Under the protection of the Italian embassy, they built it back in stages prior to full resumption of diplomatic relations with the YAR in 1972. Continue reading Arabian Nights and Daze →