Peripheral Visions
Publics, Power, and Performance in Yemen
Lisa Wedeen, who spent a year and a half in Yemen observing and interviewing its residents, argues that national solidarity in such weak states tends to arise not from attachments to institutions but through both extraordinary events and the ordinary activities of everyday life. Yemenis, for example, regularly gather to chew qat, a leafy drug similar to caffeine, as they engage in wide-ranging and sometimes influential public discussions of even the most divisive political and social issues. These lively debates exemplify Wedeen’s contention that democratic, national, and pious solidarities work as ongoing, performative practices that enact and reproduce a citizenry’s shared points of reference. Ultimately, her skillful evocations of such practices shift attention away from a narrow focus on government institutions and electoral competition and toward the substantive experience of participatory politics.
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Won
“Apart from its clear contributions to the field of comparative politics and the literature on nationalism, Peripheral Visions is a genuinely creative and original intervention into the debates in democratic theory. Wedeen brilliantly shows how in Yemen weak state institutions form not the limit but the condition of vigorous civic deliberation and political participation. Her text reads against the grain of traditional interpretations to elucidate the formation of meaningful political identifications and communities in the quotidian practices of Yemeni daily life. The result is a deeply textured and compelling account of public sphere formation in which we come to recognize the crucial political importance of everyday acts of speaking and acting in concert.”—Linda M. G. Zerilli, Northwestern University
“Unusually well-written and polished, Peripheral Visions makes important contributions to our understanding of Yemen and to the study of politics. Lisa Wedeen innovatively locates her inquiry in the venerable tradition of interpretive social science. There is no comparable book on Yemen.”
“I am deeply impressed by Lisa Wedeen’s fieldwork in Yemen and her rich findings. She also knows the literature on Yemen very well, discusses it fairly, and uses it imaginatively. Peripheral Visions is a significant contribution to Middle East studies, political science, and anthropology.”—Steve Caton, Harvard University
“A highly original exploration of the everyday performances and deliberative spaces in which collective identities and democratic futures are fashioned, Peripheral Visions is an important contribution to contemporary political theory.”—Timothy Mitchell, New York University
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter One
Imagining Unity
Chapter Two
Seeing Like a Citizen, Acting Like a State
Chapter Three
The Politics of Deliberation: Qat Chews as Public Spheres
Chapter Four
Practicing Piety, Summoning Groups: Disorder as Control
Chapter Five
Piety in Time: Contemporary Islamic Movements in National and Transnational Contexts
Conclusion
Politics as Performative
Notes
Index
Anthropology: Cultural and Social Anthropology
Political Science: Comparative Politics
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