This conference was organised by the British-Yemeni Society (BYS) and the London Middle East Institute (LMEI) at SOAS. It was the first major academic conference on Yemen convened in the UK since the mid 1990s. Over 400 people had wanted to participate but we only had room to register 300, making it the largest conference organised by the LMEI. The British-Yemeni Society had not previously arranged an event of this magnitude. It showed that there was a great deal of interest in Yemen within and beyond the academic community. The conveners (Noel Brehony and Thanos Petouris) were delighted at the response to the call for papers which enabled the academic committee to draw up a programme of high quality with panellists from many different countries. The conference was organised to ensure that there was at least 30 minutes of question and answer and discussion for each panel – leading to some lively and productive exchanges. About 30% of the participants were Yemenis including British Yemenis from Liverpool, London, Sheffield and other parts of the UK. A particular welcome was extended to the panellists who had travelled from Yemen. The convenors thanked the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) for its help with obtaining visas although the difficulties over the UK visa process prevented more Yemenis from taking part.

This was an academic conference but the convenors encouraged panellists to offer ideas to help Yemen overcome the many challenges it faces. Several participants, especially those dealing with economic and development issues, made recommendations to the Yemeni government and organisations and to foreign governments.

The BYS and the LMEI are planning to publish papers written by conference participants in a book that will be issued by the end of 2013. The BYS will consider working with partners to convene smaller discussions/seminars on some of the major issues highlighted in the conference. The BYS will continue to organise its regular lecture programme to reflect the high level of interest in how Yemen is meeting its challenges. It hopes that the conference will stimulate more people to join the Society and help organise and take part in future events.

We give below a brief account of the opening sessions and keynote speakers followed by abstracts of papers presented at the conference.

Introductory remarks

Hassan Hakimian, Director of the LMEI, and Noel Brehony, Chairman of the BYS, said that this was an academic conference and the programme was drawn up by an academic committee (Adel Aulaqi, Gabriele vom Bruck, Helen Lackner and Shelagh Weir) from over 60 responses to our call for papers. It could not have been done without the support of sponsors and the BYS would like to thank them for their generosity: the MBI al Jaber Foundation; the Yemeni British Friendship Association; Hayel Saeed Anam; Thabet Brothers; the FCO; Menas Associates; and Nexen Inc. Abdullah al-Radhi and his staff at the Yemen embassy provided strong support

Sheikh Mohamed bin Issa al Jaber welcomed the opportunity to become involved with this important conference and commended all those who were working so hard to bring about positive change in Yemen. He congratulated the youth of Yemen on their extraordinary achievements over the last year or so and on their courage and determination to resist violence and embrace peaceful protest. He hoped that they would continue to lead the march towards freedom, democracy, equality, human rights and the rule of law. Sheikh Mohamed announced that, through his Foundation, he would be working closely with UNESCO to develop an education strategy for Yemen, which would provide the foundations for a new national education system and curriculum.

For two years Yemen has been the site of one of the most sustained peaceful popular uprisings in the Arab world but also, at the same time, a major theatre of US counter-terror operations. In backing the GCC-brokered transfer of power from Salih to al-Hadi, the United States attempted to cope by pursuing three contradictory policies. First, the US has backed the GCC effort to quell a peaceful mass pro-democracy movement by engineering a very modest form of regime change that ignores the Yemeni people’s demands but serves Gulf interests in keeping democracy at bay. Secondly, and disregarding purported aims of democratisation, America has invested heavily in Yemen’s national security establishment. Thirdly, the Obama administration has opened a new front in a semi-covert war against jihadi militants, in particular by using unmanned drones for targeted and ‘signature’ strikes. In combination these policies have stoked anti-Americanism where none existed before.

The Arab Spring prompted a wide range of reactions by militaries across the Middle East and North Africa, highlighting significant and diverse changes in Arab civil–military relations in recent decades. In Yemen, the unique brand of praetorianism that characterised the Salih regime’s relationship with the army was put to the test as they were confronted by widespread anti-government protests. The fracturing of the armed forces that ensued was reflective of the deep-seated divisions and shifting allegiances which have come to define Yemeni society. This shift in civil–military relations came as a result of various internal and external pressures to the Saleh regime’s system of tribal control and modifications to the regime’s overall governance strategy over the past decade. This paper explores such developments and their impact on Yemeni civil–military relations, highlighting the enduring and emerging challenges the interim Hadi government must contend with as it moves forward with the implementation of the Gulf Cooperation Council initiative alongside its own reform agenda.

This paper examines the role(s) and places(s) of military and security services with an eye to shedding light on Yemen’s present political transition. The nature, pace and direction of political change in Yemen will largely depend on settlements and realignments directly affecting the security sector. The ‘Arab Spring’ threw into sharp relief the existence of parallel, competing military– security apparatuses, some of which had coalesced into critical centres of power under the command of rival elites, as well as their embeddedness within political and economic structures. President Hadi’s efforts to restructure Yemen’s military–security landscape bear out the ways in which authoritarianism and democracy combine and intersect in Yemen’s ‘transition’ to produce ambivalent configurations of power. At the same time, the security sector in Yemen is unintelligible outside a perspective that attends to its international dimension, especially the selective military build-up and containment strategies set in motion by the West since Yemen was declared a ‘frontline state’ in the ‘Global War on Terror’.

This paper offers historical and anthropological perspectives on the so-called `Huthi wars’ which erupted in the Sa`dah region between 2004 and 2010. By way of introduction to the second panel, it summarises the background to the conflict. It then highlights historical precedents and socio-political factors which help illuminate its complexities. The paper argues that essentialist stereotyping of the chief actors involved, including `the tribes’, obstructs understanding of this conflict as a dynamic ever-changing phenomenon. Instead it suggests a more nuanced and locally-contextualised approach to understanding recent events and devising strategies for peace and reconciliation. It argues that analysts and decision makers need to appreciate the nature and durability of the political structures and values evidenced during this conflict, and also their potential for adaptation and change.

The so-called ‘colonel shaykhs’ are tribal leaders who also hold governmental military or police position. The co-optation and integration of influential tribal leaders into the republican security sector enabled the Yemeni state to expand its influence deeply into previously inaccessible territories with strong tribal traditions, notably in Upper Yemen. The Huthi conflict, however, revealed that the republican practice of giving important shaykhs key executive positions also contains certain elements of risks for the state’s stability, because many Colonel shaykhs continued the war against the Huthi rebels even after the 2010 armistice. The paper briefly summarises the rise of the Colonel shaykhs following the Yemeni Revolution of 1962 and their role in the Huthi conflict. It examines the motives of these shaykhs to join the governmental army and to struggle against the Huthis – motivations that often date back deep into the family history of these shaykhs themselves.

The paper identifies how and when the perceived links of non-core groups to external patrons plays a role in elite decision-makers' nation-building choices to accommodate or exclude such non-core populations. Applying a theory of threat perception, Wells addresses the case of the Huthi rebellion in Sa’dah, focusing on government decisions to exclude Huthis and their supporters violently from 2004 to 2010. The paper focuses on justifications about the Huthis as foreign and Iranian backed, and how this narrative and perception played into the government of Yemen strategy about Sa’dah as a part of the Yemeni nation as a whole.

Why do some intra-state conflicts escalate into open violence while others remain peaceful? Which role do elites play in framing threat perception and the mobilisation of group members for violent action? Under which conditions will such frames be successful?

Identity groups suffering from state repression or the effects of increased state failure sometimes react in a violent way while in other cases they remain peaceful. Gradzow’s PhD research project looks at ‘collective action frames’ as an explanatory factor for the success of mobilisation for violence. The model implies that if violent frames are successful, the risk for a rebellion increases; if they fail, there may still be peaceful actions or no action at all. Two contrasting cases are analysed While the Huthis have acted with massive violence, al-Hiraak has remained peaceful.

The decolonisation process in Aden and the Protectorates of South Arabia which evolved over three decades (1937–1967), led to the formation of a distinct South Arabian, and later South Yemeni national identity. Today, the Southern Question, the idea of self-determination for the South and of belonging to a separate national entity, has acquired a prominent place in Yemeni politics. The aim of this paper is to explore the mechanisms leading to the emergence of a national identity in periods of decolonisation in general, and in South Yemen in particular; to address the reasons for the re-emergence of such modes of identification in the politics of southern Yemen after unity; and to consider the paradox of the glorification of the colonial, and partly of the socialist past of the country, in the contemporary southern political discourse as it is being shaped by the Southern Movement.

The PDRY existed for less than 23 years before unification in 1990. Its rulers pursued policies that were quite distinct from those of the YAR, concentrating power in the hands of a ruling party, building a socialist state and economy, aspiring to become part of the Soviet-dominated world and reducing the influence of tribalism. The south Yemeni leaders wanted to achieve unity by extending their systems to the whole of Yemen and believed that the 1990 unity agreement would allow this to happen through the ballot box. The paper will examine how the experience of the PDRY added to an existing sense that there was a south Yemeni identity, distinct from that of the north. This remains an important political factor in the Yemen of 2013 and will need to be taken into account in the current discussions in the national dialogue on the future governance of Yemen.

Her paper will focus on Southern Yemeni young people's expectations on what role the state should play in building the country's future. Born during the turbulent years of Yemeni unity, these young people have learned from their parents about the relatively stable times before Yemeni unity when everybody had a job and no corruption prevailed. In the face of political and economic crisis and massive youth unemployment, a sense of disillusionment has spread among the Southern youth. For young men, unemployment means postponed marriage too, and emotional frustration. In response, the young people I met in the Southern Yemeni town of Aden, the former capital of the PDRY, have created ideas of a fair state by drawing on the imagined fairness of the previous regime and an ideal state. Their parents have told them how during the previous regime, with a state job every young man was able to marry with reasonable cost, as down payments were legislated in the Family Law (1974) not to exceed the means of anyone. While times are dramatically different today, the ideal state, in the mind of these young women and men, is the one which hires every graduate into the happy family of the national community. The paper explores the discrepancies between youthful expectations and the economic realities that politically active young people have to face in today's Aden. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork in Yemen during the course of the late 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, altogether a total of some three years.

The micro, small and micro enterprise (MSME) sector plays a critical role in the Yemeni economy. MSMEs are the main employer in the country, creating opportunities for thousands of people entering the labour force every year. Yet MSMEs face tremendous challenges including poor infrastructure, difficulties in securing raw materials, lack of technical support, difficulties in finding and adopting new technologies, the lack of qualified employees and the lack of financing opportunities. They also suffer from the excessive licensing requirements of bureaucratic and non-transparent government agencies, in taxation and many more areas. In a country where large investment projects are very limited and constrained by many factors including the fragile political situation, the only option available to policy-makers is to take necessary measures to help this sector. The government of Yemen has identified MSMEs as one of the economy’s drivers but it has failed to take the necessary measures to support them. There is a need to establish an official definition for the sector and create a specialised institution to oversee the development of MSMEs in Yemen.

This paper examines the application of law on foreign individuals and entities who live and work in Yemen. It focuses on common legal obstacles and missteps for new entrants into the country and how to avoid or overcome them. Relying heavily on first-hand experience and empirical observation, the paper investigates the types of conflict with which foreigners can become involved and looks at the common dispute-resolution mechanisms among Yemenis, especially for practical issues such as employment, property boundaries and security. It concludes by analysing how useful these mechanisms are to foreigners and by considering how non-Yemenis may avail themselves of alternative methods for resolution of legal issues in the country. Where appropriate, the paper refers to scholarly work in the fields of Yemeni customary and parliamentary law, Islamic jurisprudence and international law.

Yemen’s health care system, a state and private-sector institution, has all the ingredients of a good comprehensive service. Its last serious health care reform took place between 1998 and 2001; the majority of its proposals remained unimplemented. Today it manifests the symptoms and signs of an ailing, poorly regulated system. To make it fit for purpose, it will benefit from a fresh look at fundamental reform of its structures and workings. Irrespective of what emerges from Yemen’s present political turmoil, the imperative of reform will apply. Here, it is impossible to offer more than snapshots of the essence of how to approach reforming the system through the concept of evidence-based prioritisation. All proposed solutions will demand hard political and financial decisions and an unambiguous strong will to implement. Reform will almost certainly be met by strong resistance, as did previous attempts. Serious consideration of the inadequacies and inequities will need negotiated, measured, long-term solution policies supported by all stakeholders: while state health care needs better definition, the private sector would benefit from better regulation. Preventive medicine, a focus on childhood, maternity and women’s illnesses will most likely offer better long-term health results. An unambiguous focus on medical ethics is in need of stronger establishment and clearer regulation.

Adopting the international definition of reproductive health as a reproductive right, this paper examines the diverse issues that determine women’s reproductive health outcomes in the Republic of Yemen. These include the effect of Islamic conservatism, the prevalence of traditional beliefs about health, illness and procreation, as well as conservative and patriarchal gender and familial relations, which are reinforced by increasingly conservative formulations of women’s status and the lack of a coherent health policy. Instead of emphasising the importance of any one particular factor, this paper argues that women’s reproductive health outcomes and fertility rates are the result of individuals’ strategies and decisions that both reflect, and are affected by, the structure of power within Yemeni society. The paper concludes that sustainable and meaningful improvements in reproductive health outcomes require a move beyond the traditional focus on improving the availability of medical services to include a greater understanding of the complex choices and pressures faced by Yemeni women as well as a greater recognition of and respect for women’s rights.

In September 2012, donor governments pledged a total of US$7.9 billion to assist Yemen until the end of 2014. Aid from foreign governments will be an important factor in supporting Yemen's transition towards new elections and, in the long term, towards a solid economic, social and political basis. Yemen faces a difficult period where a political transition is concurrent with a humanitarian crisis and low government revenues. The way in which aid is spent should therefore be well-balanced between humanitarian, reconstruction and development projects and be implemented through effective channels. The presentation will focus on the challenges that face all humanitarian and development actors in their efforts to achieve this.

Theatre is, perhaps surprisingly, a vibrant genre in contemporary Yemen. In 2009 and 2010, experimental and bilingual dramas and an Arabic-language musical, among other performances, took place in the capital. Such plays contained searing criticism of corruption in the Yemeni government, of the failures of the nation’s health care and educational systems, of endemic poverty and of the lack of opportunities available to Yemen’s youth and women. This presentation traces the ways in which recent Yemeni theatre has acted as a forum for the free and creative expression of anger, anxiety and hope about the state of the nation. It briefly illustrates the types of socio-political criticism presented in three plays staged in 2009 and 2010, then analyses the types of theatre that unfolded in the Yemeni streets in 2011, and concludes with an examination of the concerns that are finding expression on the Yemeni stage in 2012.

Habib ‘Abd al-Rabb Surur is one of the most outstanding Yemeni authors: an intellectual in the broader sense of the term, since he is a man of letters, a scientist and an academic. In his works as a novelist, he manages to mingle these various interests. This happens, for instance, in ‘Araq al-alihah, published in 2008. At a different level and in a different mode, the same takes place in Taqrir al-hudhud (2012). Two of the major topics he deals with are gender and identity issues, since, while being greatly interested in the special relationship between men and women, as he showed in Damalan (2009) and Ta’ir al-harab (2005), he is attracted by the thorny question of identity at large both in Yemen and in the Arabic ummah as a whole.

Absolute shortage of water is Yemen’s foremost long-term problem (per capita water availability dropped to 90m3 in 2009), with grave social, economic and political consequences. While certain objective facts (3% per annum population increase, climate change, 70% of the population rural, 90% of water used in agriculture) are among the causes, political and socio-cultural factors also share responsibility for this situation. This paper examines the role of the state, funding agencies and social forces in water management since unification in 1990. It is based on available official documentation and other literature as well as the experience of the author working in rural development in Yemen from the 1970s onwards. The paper explores four key governance themes: the role of the state, the multiplicity of institutions and their causes, the influence of foreign development institutions and finally addresses the issue of the future of water management in a post-transition regime.

For Imam Yahya, one of Yemen’s last kings, qat was a delight that he praised in poems. For his adversary, the revolutionary al-Zubayri, the plant was the ‘devil in the shape of a tree’. Even today views on qat diverge greatly. For some, qat farming is the perpetuum mobile of Yemen’s rural economy, for others the drug is to blame for poverty, corruption and the depletion of water resources. With Yemen’s 2011 revolution a decade of half-hearted qat policies and missed opportunities has come to an end – a decade, however, that has succeeded in lifting the veil of silence that was cast over qat in media and politics after President Salih came to power in 1978. With the forecast depletion of Yemen’s oil and gas reserves within the next decade, the economic importance of qat will increase further and will bring about an important shift in the balance of power from the central government towards the qat producing highland tribes. The challenge of addressing the qat problem is thus tremendous for Yemen’s policy makers

Every year some 4,000 people die in violent clashes in land-related disputes. Land is a valuable resource, especially if it is farmland or located in or near one of the fast growing cities. There is no comprehensive land registry in Yemen, and claims of land ownership are based on different legal traditions. Court-based litigation is currently dealing with a high number of land-related disputes, but the jurisdiction is constrained by a lack of resources and burdened with a distrust of its neutrality. The effectiveness of a conflict-resolution instrument based on customary law has been weakened in recent years due to various reasons. ADR is a collective term for various communication strategies helping the parties in dispute to communicate and find a legal binding decision. Advantages include procedural flexibility, compatibility with shari‘ah and similarities with sulh and al-tahkim. ADR, and arbitration in particular, can be tailored to the specific needs of solving land related-conflicts in Yemen.

This paper looks at a customary practice still applied today by many tribal communities in Yemen to deal with conflict over natural resources. The paper explores one particular example from farming communities in the extremely water-stressed Amran basin. A tribal document drawn up to resolve the water conflict is examined. The case study provides evidence of local solutions and community self-regulation in dealing with water stress. The paper then looks at the implications of such customary practices for the decentralisation of water resources management in times of uncertainty – whether political or in terms of anticipated climate change.

Taiz is one of the three largest cities in Yemen and plays a significant role in the national economy as the country’s industrial centre. It has a relatively educated young population, and was the trigger for the popular uprising that led to a change of president and government. Taiz suffers the most advanced water crisis of all Yemen’s towns. Only some half of the households of Greater Taiz are connected to the utility network receiving water once every four to six weeks; the other half must buy tankered water at great expense which can take up to 15% of a meagre household budget. This presentation examines the current conflict between city abstraction of the hinterland groundwater and its traditional agricultural users, along with its implications for destabilising urban migration. It argues that, given the extreme water scarcity now faced by the region, the only long-term solution will be to pump desalinated water up from the coast. It is essential, given Yemen’s current political fragility, that such a major change is carefully planned to minimise frictions and ensure that poorer households at least are better off financially from the change. The severe constraints that water scarcity places on Taiz industry is examined along with the potential ‘water dividend’ for industry, small businesses and job creation once the water supply challenge is resolved.

The Yemeni community has expanded to become one of the largest Arab diasporic communities in China. Based on a multi-site ethnography conducted in Yemen (Sana’a and Aden) and China (Beijing and Guangzhou), this paper first explains how strong China’s humanitarian aid, infrastructure and other national projects in the socialist era have ensured an ongoing Chinese presence in Yemen and cemented strong bilateral relations from the 1950s onwards. Secondly it explores the factors that have attracted Yemenis to China since the1980s: as a result of China’s ‘Open Door Policy’ in 1978 and subsequent economic growth, Yemeni traders, travelling and managing business between China and Middle East, have served as business brokers, mainly for Saudi Arabia .Through studying the lives of people at two ends of the new Silk Road, it illustrates that the transnational circuit of the Sino-Yemeni relationship is never symmetrical. Thirdly, this paper discusses how Ho’s Yemeni respondents perceive China’s economic model to be different from the western model of development. In the midst of Arab Spring in the region of the Middle East and especially in Yemen, it provides Yemenis with an alternative that criticises the leadership of Ali Abdullah Saleh and imagines the future development of Yemen. Finally, this paper explores the everyday challenges for the Yemeni community living in China and how they resolve the difficulties inherent in their lives in China.

P. K. M. Abdul Jaleel (Nehru University, New Delhi): Social Meaning of Diaspora Remittance in Yemen: A Case Study of Mahjars of Singapore in Hadhramaut

Yemeni migrants, at different stages in history, have entered into successful diaspora in diverse regions of the world. While Yemeni (mainly Hadrami) communities in Gujarat, Delhi, Hyderabad, Malabar, Java, Singapore and East Africa constitute medieval and early modern diaspora, migration of the similar group in post-oil boom Gulf and recent movements to US and Europe represent a modern diaspora with entirely different push and pull factors. Through faith-based and trade-based networks, Yemeni migrants enjoyed a special status with a wide reach in the political and religious realms in the receiving societies, though the benefits homeland gained out of it were not as apparent or as durable as one might expect. As the émigrés settle as wealthy communities in most diasporic locations and become assimilated into host societies, the massive outflow of Yemenis seems more of a bane than a boon for the sending villages in Yemen which lose substantial amount of human and economic resources in the process. The study of Hadrami Mahjars of Singapore, however, illustrates a different story that makes an exception to the general situation since they invest a large amount of money in various educational and infrastructural activities in Hadramawt region. The present paper seeks to explore how Mahjars of Singapore historically emerged as an outstanding community maintaining close ties with the homeland economically and politically. The paper consists of three parts: it explains the successful story of Hadrami Mahjars , examines how their remittances are used in Hadramawt and, extrapolating from the past, analyses change in pattern and new avenues of spending.

This paper focuses on migration to and from Yemen, its gendered aspects and the impact of political events on population movements. For a long time Yemen was mainly regarded as a sending country in migration, but since the early 1990s Yemen has also turned into a receiving country. Hundreds of thousands of Somali and Ethiopian migrants and refugees have come to Yemen, often aspiring to move on to the oil-rich countries of the Peninsula or to Europe and North America. The political developments that have taken place since early 2011 have not only greatly affected the local population but also migrants and refugees. The paper analyses the various migration flows between Yemen and the Horn of Africa through the lens of gender and labour, with particular attention on the impact of political events on social inequality. Its data is derived from anthropological fieldwork in Yemen, media reports and secondary sources.

Dr Helene Thiollet (CERI - Sciences Po, Paris): Migration, Conflict and Revolution: Population Movements in Post-Revolutionary Yemen

The Sa‘dah civil war (since 2004), the Southern rebellion (since 2007), the Yemeni ‘spring’ (in 2011) and the systemic degradation of the economic, social and ecological situation in Yemen have generated internal population movements while the enduring crisis and conflict in the neighbouring Horn of Africa has maintained a high level of refugee and asylum seeker influxes through the Gulf of Aden. These fluxes of forced migration and internal displacement trends have to be analysed in the light of long-term migration and transnational trends that have always shaped Yemen’s integration in the Arabian Peninsula and in global migration dynamics. The growing complexity of people’s mobility and the dramatic consequences that have come with it reveal the lack of management on behalf of local and international actors. It also reveals the politics of containment that have been developed vis-à-vis refugees in the Horn of Africa and Yemen. We will explore population dynamics, especially with regard to their connection to the failures of public policies and the constraints of diplomatic pressures of foreign actors. Migration is therefore a lens through which social impacts of the revolution and enduring conflicts in the region can be envisioned.

Chair: Thanos Petouris (SOAS)

Dr Laurent Bonnefoy (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique): Reshuffling the Cards in the Islamic Field: Ulama of the Palace, Salafis and Muslim Brothers

Religious actors and Islamist movements did not start Yemen’s revolution, but they are looming large over its fate. Events are creating the conditions for a reshuffling of cards that is likely to change the ways in which these various actors compete or co-operate with one another and define their identity. Both supporters of Ali Abdallah Saleh and his opponents have tried hard since January 2011 to use the Islamic field to legitimise their own stance and to look for new allies. Associations have been created, new groups have emerged and positions have evolved, particularly among Salafis while Muslim Brothers, as in Egypt, are likely to play an even more central role than they did before. The reshuffling of positions is occurring while the new Yemeni government and its international allies are continuing to focus on the violent trend of Islamism, namely on al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and its offshoot Ansar al-Sharia, at the expense of understanding the evolutions of the Islamic field in a nuanced way. This paper intends to develop an analysis of the current and coming trends inside this field.

Laila al-Zwaini (Leiden): Civil State, Islamic Law, Tribal Society? Reconstructing Yemen after Saleh

Until Spring 2011, the Yemeni state was the product of Saleh’s carefully constructed web of patronage-networks of tribal, Islamic, military, and other notable loyalists, backed by foreign support. Saleh often declared Yemen a ‘tribal state’, and not without reason. His regime likewise responded to internal and regional pressure to (re-)state its Islamic identity. Shari‘ah has historically been invoked by different Yemeni actors as a powerful discourse to address societal problems, and to legitimize political and legal authority. Shari‘ah has also been invoked as a counter-discourse, by Huthi-tribes in the north and Islamic militants in the south. The recent popular uprisings drew attention to alternative courses -- secularism, socialism, and the newly heard ‘civilism’ (madaniyyah), to remedy major injustices committed during Saleh’s reign, and as a potential basis for a new unitary state. This paper will explore the amalgam of socio-legal (dis)courses - shari‘ah, madaniyyah, qabaliyyah/tribalism - by leading actors in the ongoing process of Yemen’s transition.

Yemen, like other countries experiencing the Arab Spring, is currently undergoing unpredictable change. The campaigning squares and their surrounding streets in Yemen have, however, experienced the longest periods of open political, social and cultural mobility in the world: over 8,000 tents and 5,000 unions and organisations have been involved in demonstrations over the last 14 months, including business, professional and unprofessional associations, unions, tribes people, soldiers, intellectuals, journalists and workers. This picture changed with the withdrawal of young people from arenas on the 12th June 2012 though the Yemeni squares represented a significant obstacle to the former authority when excessive force was used against the youth. This paper tries to clarify the Arab Spring in general and display what is missing in the Yemeni context, providing answers for politicians, academics and ordinary people outside Yemen. It reveals the uniqueness of the Yemeni experience of the uprising experience in terms of its political structure, diversity and culture mobility.

Vincent Planel (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris): Doing Ethnography in the Land of Informants: Tribality in Ta`iz and the Epistemology of the Yemeni Situation