A Post-Exotic Anthropology of Soqotra, Volume I

"Dr. Serge D. Elie's remarkable tour de force is both a rich multi-layered 'mesographic' narrative about Soqotran and Yemeni communal polities in constant transition and a stunning rebuttal to Eurocentric conventions of knowledge production. By advocating a new 'ethic of reciprocity,' A Post-Exotic Anthropology of Soqotra offers a rich 'portrait' of the necessarily co-dependent, decades-long relationship between scholar and indigenous collaborators. By advocating moving beyond the 'West-Rest Antinomy' so prevalent in the discipline, Dr. Elie promises readers a vital curative to generations of anthropology of Yemen."

-Isa Blumi, Associate Professor, Department of Asian, Middle Eastern, and Turkish Studies, Stockholm University, Sweden, and author of Destroying Yemen: What Chaos in Arabia Tells Us about the World (2018)

This two-volume book offers a panoramic explanatory narrative of Soqotra Island's rediscovery based on the global significance of its endemic biodiversity. This rediscovery not only engendered Soqotra's protective environmental supervision by United Nations agencies, but also the intensification of its bureaucratic incorporation and political subordination by Yemen's mainland national government. Together, the two volumes provide a "total" community study based on an historically contextualized and analytically detailed portrait of the Soqotran community via a multi-layered narrative the author terms a "mesography." The first volume, A Post-Exotic Anthropology of Soqotra, Volume I: A Mesography of an Indigenous Polity in Yemen, situates the author's study within the emergent configuration of the structures of knowledge production in the social sciences before moving onto a systematic identification of the constitutive aspects, pivotal vectors, and historical contexts of Soqotra's transitioning polity. The second volume, A Post-Exotic Anthropology of Soqotra, Volume II: Culturaland Environmental Annexation of an Indigenous Community, explores how cultural modernization in the light of environmental annexation transforms communal possibilities, development models, environmental values, conservation priorities, cultural practices, economic aspirations, language preferences, livelihood choices, and other key social norms. The two volumes lay the social scientific foundations for the study of Soqotrans as an island-based indigenous community.

Auteur

Serge D. Elie holds a D.Phil. in Social Anthropology from the University of Sussex, UK. He is a former policy research consultant and former development professional at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). He is currently an independent scholar engaged in the practice of a post-exotic anthropology that relies on mesography as an alternative method to ethnography. His interests include state-community relations, development and environment articulation, communities in transition, state and polity formation processes, pastoralism, research method development and theory formation practices.

Résumé

This two-volume book offers a panoramic explanatory narrative of Soqotra Island's rediscovery based on the global significance of its endemic biodiversity. This rediscovery not only engendered Soqotra's protective environmental supervision by United Nations agencies, but also the intensification of its bureaucratic incorporation and political subordination by Yemen's mainland national government. Together, the two volumes provide a total community study based on an historically contextualized and analytically detailed portrait of the Soqotran community via a multi-layered narrative the author terms a mesography. The first volume, *A Post-Exotic Anthropology of Soqotra, Volume I: A Mesography of an Indigenous Polity in Yemen, *situates the author's study within the emergent configuration of the structures of knowledge production in the social sciences before moving onto a systematic identification of the constitutive aspects, pivotal vectors, and historical contexts of Soqotra's transitioning polity. The second volume, *A Post-Exotic Anthropology of Soqotra, Volume II: Cultural and Environmental Annexation of an Indigenous Community, *explores how cultural modernization in the light of environmental annexation transforms communal possibilities, development models, environmental values, conservation priorities, cultural practices, economic aspirations, language preferences, livelihood choices, and other key social norms. The two volumes lay the social scientific foundations for the study of Soqotrans as an island-based indigenous community.

Contenu

Prologue: An Invitation to Practice Anthropology Differently

Chapter 1: Mesography as Paradigm for a Post-Exotic Anthropology: The Post-Ethnography Turn

Part I: Eco-Socio-Economic Disarticulation: Waning Pastoral Community

Chapter 2: Synoptic Preview: Context, Catalysts Theory & History

Chapter 3: A Socio-Ecological Formation: The Human-Environment Dialectic Chapter 4: Communal Identity Mutation: From Status Hierarchy to Ethnic Ranking

Chapter 5: Island Pastoralism: External Entanglements and Internal Entailments

Chapter 6: Pastoral Economy: From Core to Auxiliary Livelihood

Part II: Political Incorporation: Constitution of a Sub-National Polity

Chapter 7: State-Community Relations: Political History Conjunctures

Chapter 8: Politics of Redistribution: Governance Culture and Public Ethos

Epilogue: Soqotrans as an Indigenous Polity