Muwalladeen Activists and the Struggle for Equal Citizenship in Yemen, 1970-2024
The Arab Spring and the subsequent transition process in Yemen provided an opportunity for minorities to fight for more civil rights. Youth and women were at the forefront of the protests, but also racial minorities increased their call for equal citizenship and against discrimination.
One group consisted of Yemenis of mixed Yemeni-African descent (so-called muwalladeen). In this lecture, Marina de Regt will discuss the ways in which muwalladeen have fought for equal citizenship in the past fifty years. Her main argument is that the outbreak of the war in Yemen in 2014/2015 has led to a greater awareness among and more initiatives of muwalladeen to claim equal citizenship but that the context in which activists can operate has changed dramatically. The paper is based on ongoing research with activists in and outside Yemen.
Practical
Date 11 March
Time 16:00
Place IISG, Cruquiusweg 31, Amsterdam
Entrance Free entrance, but please register at event@iisg.nl
Marina de Regt is Associate Professor and Programme Director of the Bachelor and Master at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She lived and worked in Yemen for many years. Marina's research expertise lies in the field of gender and migration with particular attention for (migrant) women's paid work in Yemen and Ethiopia. She has studied a wide variety of topics such as women's work in the Moroccan carpet sector, female health care workers in a development project in Yemen, migrant domestic workers in Yemen, and adolescent migrant girls in Ethiopia. In addition, she has a keen interest in the history of migration between Yemen and the Horn of Africa and has done, and is still doing, research about Yemenis of mixed Yemeni-African descent (so-called muwalladeen). Last but not least, she is interested in feminist research methodologies and in particular in the role of friendship in the field.
