Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EMStaD YEMEN (Early Modern State Development in Yemen)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2022-09-01 do 2024-08-31
The project addressed the development of state institutions and socio-political elites in Yemen in the early modern period. The main question of the project focused on the examination of reasons for resilience of the Zaydi imamate in Yemen and its transformations in light of its interactions with the Ottoman empire in the 16th-17th centuries. The project considered how the Zaydi imamate, a polity driven by a particular version of Shi'i Islam that stressed meritocratic rather than dynastic transfer of power, was able to stabilize its political system. Overall, the project examined the development of Yemen's political history in a connected perspective and stressed links and moments of dialogue between the Zaydis and their neighbours, especially Sunnis. It also examined the social structure of the political elite in the Zaydi imamate, paying special attention to descendants of the Prophet (sayyids) who traditionally held political power, their interactions with each other and Yemeni tribal groups. The project's methodological contribution was to build this analysis on a vast source base of manuscripts from Yemen that remain unedited and to bridge existing gaps between subfields of Yemeni studies.
In year 1 of the research project, the researcher focused on the analysis of the history of rulers in Zaydi Yemen and documentary sources related to the transfer of power in the region. In October 2022, a presentaion on the subject of rulers' biographies was made at the international 'Arabic Pasts' conference in London (UK). In December 2022 the researcher presented additional results of inquiry into the image of rulers and kinship relations between sayyids and tribes at a conference organized by her supervisor Petra Sijpestijn in Leiden. The feedback received from both conferences was used to guide the lines of research for the preparation of a chapter for the Oxford Handbook on Shiism that was submitted in August 2023, as well as two articles (one submitted and published with the Journal for the Economic and Social History of the Orient (JESHO), the other submitted and published with a special issue of the journal Medieval Encounters). Together, these three contributions explored the ways in which historians of Zaydi Yemen framed the image of rulers and articulated their links to Yemen's communities, in particular the tribes. Furthermore, one of the articles integrated information from Ottoman documentary sources and explored the longue-duree transformation of sayyid positions in Yemen.
The same year the researcher organized a Roundtable on Yemeni Studies during which an international group of scholars discussed the difficulties of research into Yemen's history and societal implications of this research. The event was open to the public and was paired with a pop-up exhibition and a manuscript workshop that highlighted the diverse heritage of Yemen. The research and dissemination activities of the first year led to several professional outcomes for the researcher, who was able to secure an assistant professor appointment in the Netherlands and was further invited to give several talks at universities in and outside of the Netherlands.
In years 2 and 3 of the research project (now conducted part-time) the researcher focused on preparing an edition of a document concerning the transfer of power in pre-Ottoman Yemen. Based on this research, the researcher submitted an article to a special journal issue that she is co-editing on the role of elites in the transfer of power in Zaydi Yemen, the edition as a separate publication with an introduction to another journal, and organized two panels on Zaydi governance at international conferences – the Seminar for Arabian Studies and the Middle East Studies Association of North America annual conference. The papers from this special session will appear in the Proceedings of the Seminar. Furthermore, the researcher presented the outcomes of her research in several international conferences - GIS MOMM (Lyon), Bi-annual meeting of the Union europeen des arabisant et islamisants (Granada), and the international workshop Imamate and models of governance within the minor branches of Islam (Shi’ism and Ibadism) in Lyon.
To promote the project, the researcher prepared an online exhibition for the Leiden University Library "Yemen through the Dutch Lens" (published April 2024) and recorded three short videos with the Library's communication office. She also published a popular article in the British Yemeni Society Journal, an open-access general audience publication dedicated to the study of Yemen. The researcher also organized a series of monthly online public lectures on interdisciplinary studies of Yemen in collaboration with the Leiden University Center for Islam and Society. The lecture series featured speakers from across the globe working on different aspects of Yemen's history, archaeology, political studies, anthropology. The series in combination with other dissemination efforts of the researcher promoted the study of Yemen and resulted in new collaborations within the field. The researcher has signed a contract with DeGruyter to publish a collective volume based on the talks series.
In the summer of 2024 the researcher collaborated with 2 co-organizers to put together an international conference "Rulers' Biographies in the premodern Islamicate World". The conference explored an interdisciplinary and comparative approach to the study of texts and images of rulers. This collaboration allowed the researcher to position the EMSTAD YEMEN project in a broad conversation in the field of Middle Eastern studies and to present her most current research on the Ottoman-Zaydi cultural exchange in the 16th-17th centuries. Papers presented at the conference will appear as a publication, and the co-editors (including the researcher) have submitted the book proposal to a publishing house.
The same year the researcher organized a Roundtable on Yemeni Studies during which an international group of scholars discussed the difficulties of research into Yemen's history and societal implications of this research. The event was open to the public and was paired with a pop-up exhibition and a manuscript workshop that highlighted the diverse heritage of Yemen. The research and dissemination activities of the first year led to several professional outcomes for the researcher, who was able to secure an assistant professor appointment in the Netherlands and was further invited to give several talks at universities in and outside of the Netherlands.
In years 2 and 3 of the research project (now conducted part-time) the researcher focused on preparing an edition of a document concerning the transfer of power in pre-Ottoman Yemen. Based on this research, the researcher submitted an article to a special journal issue that she is co-editing on the role of elites in the transfer of power in Zaydi Yemen, the edition as a separate publication with an introduction to another journal, and organized two panels on Zaydi governance at international conferences – the Seminar for Arabian Studies and the Middle East Studies Association of North America annual conference. The papers from this special session will appear in the Proceedings of the Seminar. Furthermore, the researcher presented the outcomes of her research in several international conferences - GIS MOMM (Lyon), Bi-annual meeting of the Union europeen des arabisant et islamisants (Granada), and the international workshop Imamate and models of governance within the minor branches of Islam (Shi’ism and Ibadism) in Lyon.
To promote the project, the researcher prepared an online exhibition for the Leiden University Library "Yemen through the Dutch Lens" (published April 2024) and recorded three short videos with the Library's communication office. She also published a popular article in the British Yemeni Society Journal, an open-access general audience publication dedicated to the study of Yemen. The researcher also organized a series of monthly online public lectures on interdisciplinary studies of Yemen in collaboration with the Leiden University Center for Islam and Society. The lecture series featured speakers from across the globe working on different aspects of Yemen's history, archaeology, political studies, anthropology. The series in combination with other dissemination efforts of the researcher promoted the study of Yemen and resulted in new collaborations within the field. The researcher has signed a contract with DeGruyter to publish a collective volume based on the talks series.
In the summer of 2024 the researcher collaborated with 2 co-organizers to put together an international conference "Rulers' Biographies in the premodern Islamicate World". The conference explored an interdisciplinary and comparative approach to the study of texts and images of rulers. This collaboration allowed the researcher to position the EMSTAD YEMEN project in a broad conversation in the field of Middle Eastern studies and to present her most current research on the Ottoman-Zaydi cultural exchange in the 16th-17th centuries. Papers presented at the conference will appear as a publication, and the co-editors (including the researcher) have submitted the book proposal to a publishing house.
The project achieved its goals and has resulted in more outputs than initially expected. The scientific outputs of the project have been positively received by the scholarly community and have created new opportunities for collaboration and dialogue for the researcher. As a result of the opportunities granted by the Marie Curie grant the researcher is now a known expert in her field and is a collaborator in several international research groups. Moreover, the publications in the project have already had some reception in the policy-making community, and the researcher hopes that continuing dissemination efforts will further increase this impact of the research project. As indicated above, several publications based on the research in the project are already under review or have been accepted for publication. The researcher has also assembled sufficient material to write a monograph on a topic that she has been able to identify thanks to the opportunities of the MSCA grant.
The project started out as a focused study of Yemen's early modern history and evolved into a comparative and interdisciplinary conversation about interactions between different communities in Yemen and the place of Yemen in the larger geopolitics of the premodern Middle East and Indian Ocean world. The researcher's hope is that as a result of her research and dissemination efforts there will be a broader appreciation of Yemen's history and culture which will enrich Western society and prepare it to better deal with geopolitical challenges in the Middle East.
The project started out as a focused study of Yemen's early modern history and evolved into a comparative and interdisciplinary conversation about interactions between different communities in Yemen and the place of Yemen in the larger geopolitics of the premodern Middle East and Indian Ocean world. The researcher's hope is that as a result of her research and dissemination efforts there will be a broader appreciation of Yemen's history and culture which will enrich Western society and prepare it to better deal with geopolitical challenges in the Middle East.