Daniel Varisco | Institute for Advanced Study (original) (raw)
Books by Daniel Varisco
Violent Radical Movements in the Arab World: The Ideology and Politics of Non-State Actors, 2019
The civil crisis in Yemen following the fall of President ‘Ali ‘Abdullah Salih in 2011 after thre... more The civil crisis in Yemen following the fall of President ‘Ali ‘Abdullah Salih in 2011 after three decades in power and the political rise of the Zaydi Huthis along with their tribal allies resulted in a Saudi-led bombing campaign and military intervention that created a major humanitarian crisis. Yemen, a failed nation in terms of international legitimacy became a non-state trying to act as a state with several non-state actors, including al-Qaeda and Isis. In the late 1960s Yemen, the fabled Arabic Felix of antiquity, had emerged from an isolated imamate and a colonial-era British protectorate as two separate embryonic revolutionary nation states: the Yemen Arab Republic in the north and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen in the south. The unification of these two regimes in 1990, following the thaw in the global Cold War, seemed hopeful at first but Yemen’s struggling economy was hit almost immediately with a tsunami caused by the forced return of up to a million Yemeni laborers in the fallout from the first Gulf War against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Following Salih’s hegemonic takeover of Yemen and his support of Saudi-inspired Salafism, a Zaydi political faction known as the Huthis challenged Salih and a series of short wars ensued up until the Arab Spring that toppled him. However, a GCC-brokered agreement in November 2011 left Salih in Yemen with immunity, resulting in an unexpected alliance between troops loyal to him and the Huthi insurgency, forcing out the weak interim president ‘Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. This chapter looks at the context in which the Huthis emerged as major non-state actors in a failed state with multiple competing factions after a security meltdown with reflections on future scenarios.
Culture Still Matters: Notes from the Field, 2018
The central focus of the book is on the relationship between ethnographic fieldwork and the cult... more The central focus of the book is on the relationship between ethnographic fieldwork and the culture concept in the ongoing debate over the future of anthropology, drawing on the history of both concepts. I discuss core issues, including the culture concept, the criticism of "ethnographic authority" and whether or not anthropology is a "science." This includes the impact of Literary Studies, especially the work of Edward Said, on anthropology. The anthropological framing of culture can best be understood in terms of the range of ethnographic fieldwork that informs theoretical discussion. I argue that ethnography still serves as the most appropriate anthropological method of data gathering, and that empirical methods of data collection are essential in cultural anthropology. In this book I highlight the importance of public anthropology, an anthropology engaged with contemporary social and cultural issues, including race, ethnicity, inequality and neoliberalism. The four chapters in this book build on its central theme: a critical defense of anthropology's contribution to significant social issues and to analysis of cultures worldwide. I point out anthropologists’ unique contributions to solving significant social issues, currently as in the past.
al-Iklîl, 1992
Discussion and edition of a Yemeni agricultural poem on the seasons.
Papers by Daniel Varisco
Human Ecology, 2019
Yemen, located on the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, is one of the most water-scar... more Yemen, located on the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, is one of the most water-scarce countries in the world. Quite
apart from the continuing catastrophic conflict, the massive overdraw of existing groundwater due to unregulated drilling of tube
wells since the 1970s has created a major water crisis that affects the future of the county’s estimated 28 million people. While
once known for its rich traditions of agriculture due to its extensive highland terrace systems, spate flow and runoff water
harvesting, Yemen is now food insecure, relying almost entirely on food imports. This article surveys the range of water resources
in Yemen and their sustainability in light of climate change predictions. I examined government and development aid reports to
highlight the causes of the water crisis and the failure of previous governments to resolve it. The situation is even more critical
today, given the ongoing war between a Saudi-led coalition and a Huthi alliance that has created one of the worst humanitarian
crises in the world. I conclude with priorities for mitigating the water crisis and promoting sustainable agriculture for Yemen’s
post-conflict future.
Online at http://epub.oeaw.ac.at/wpsa32
Darwin's theory of evolution caused considerable controversy among conservative Christians, but h... more Darwin's theory of evolution caused considerable controversy among conservative Christians, but his ideas were not immediately available to Muslims. The first Arabic excerpts of Darwin's work were made in 1876 by a Syrian Christian who was influenced by pro-creationist Protestant missionaries. This article provides a brief historical overview of the debate among Muslim scholars about Darwin's theory of evolution. The range of reactions to Darwinian evolution in the Muslim world has included that of traditionalist scholars, who adhere to medieval views of a flat earth, to that of Western-trained Muslim scientists who see no contradiction between Darwinian evolution and Islamic religious beliefs. Since the Qur'ān does not provide as many details regarding theistic or God-guided evolution as appear in the biblical book of Genesis, Muslims can argue that Darwinian evolution does not directly contradict or harm Islamic teachings; nevertheless, " Islamic creationism " is on the rise, especially in cyberspace, particularly on the websites of Harun Yahya, who, in 2007, sent an Atlas of Creation to scientists in the Western world.
Available as open access online at http://www.lindenwood.edu/academics/beyond-the-classroom/publications/journal-of-international-global-studies/all-issues/volume-9-number-2/
Now approaching 11 months, the ongoing war in Yemen is first and foremost a war against people, w... more Now approaching 11 months, the ongoing war in Yemen is first and foremost a war against people, with upwards of 10,000 killed and many more wounded. This is one of the most dire humanitarian crises on the planet, but it is barely covered in the news media. A coalition of super rich states, able to purchase billions of dollars worth of weapons and mercenaries from as far away as Colombia, is pummeling the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula. This proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran for rhetorical control of the Islamic faith has been nothing but toxic for Yemen. War crimes are committed daily by all sides, as pointed out by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. At this point everyone is a potential victim in the flurry of violence by the alliance of the socalled Huthis (or Ansar Allah) and former President Salih's troops against the Saudiled coalition, alQaida (now known as Ansar Shariah), ISIS or Daesh and a host of militias and gangs. A blockade of food, medicine and much more has intensified the suffering and ground the economy to a halt. Unlike the situation in Syria, Yemeni refugees have nowhere to go. As disastrous as this war is for the Yemeni people, it is also a war against future generations who will lose parts of their rich historical heritage. The latest loss is the Taiz National Museum, a victim of Huthi bombing. This museum was the house of the last Zaydi Imam, Ahmad, and was left exactly as it was when he died in 1962. Earlier in the campaign the Dhamar regional museum was destroyed by Saudi bombs, blowing up local archaeological relics collected by an expedition from the University of Chicago. Bombs have also been dropped on the preIslamic site of the Marib dam and centuriesold traditional buildings in the capital Sanaa. The director of Awqaf for Sanaa reports that 136 mosques have been destroyed or damaged since the bombing campaign began. Last May the millenniumold mosque of alHadi ila alHaqq, the first Zaydi imam, was bombed in the town of Sa'da, which the Saudis have labeled a military target and have virtually leveled. In December another mosque in Sa'da was destroyed. The Saudis are aided in their war against Islam past by the extremist alQaida and Daesh elements in Yemen, which have been destroyed centuriesold Sufi shrines in the south. The war on Yemen's heritage is an extension of the Saudi penchant to replace anything preWahhabi with shopping malls and monuments to their regime. It is reported that 95% of the millenniumold buildings in Mecca have been destroyed in the past two decades alone. Even the house of Khadija, the Prophet's first wife, was leveled. As Ziauddin Sardar laments, " The dominant architectural site in the city is not the Sacred Mosque, where the Kaaba, the symbolic focus of Muslims everywhere, is. It is the obnoxious Makkah Royal Clock Tower hotel, which, at 1,972 feet, is among the world's tallest buildings. It is part of a mammoth development of skyscrapers that includes luxury shopping malls and hotels catering to the super rich. The skyline is no longer dominated by the rugged outline of encircling peaks. Ancient mountains have been flattened. The city is now surrounded by the brutalism of rectangular steel and concrete structures — an amalgam of Disneyland and Las Vegas. " The usual term for heritage in Arabic is turath. The war in Yemen has turned into a virtual " turathocide " , where political madness determines the fate of remembrance of Yemen's rich and varied history, both before the coming of Islam with the major South Arabian kingdoms and the long span of the Islamic era. But the past can never be completely erased, nor can a religion be restarted by cleansing what a particular group does not like about the past. Preservation of Yemen's heritage is not only damaging to the people of Yemen, but to everyone who believes that history matters. The events of this war will be remembered long after the last bombs have exploded because only a total genocide can eliminate a people's memory.
Contemporary Islam, 2014
Your article is protected by copyright and all rights are held exclusively by Springer Science +B... more Your article is protected by copyright and all rights are held exclusively by Springer Science +Business Media Dordrecht. This e-offprint is for personal use only and shall not be selfarchived in electronic repositories. If you wish to self-archive your article, please use the accepted manuscript version for posting on your own website. You may further deposit the accepted manuscript version in any repository, provided it is only made publicly available 12 months after official publication or later and provided acknowledgement is given to the original source of publication and a link is inserted to the published article on Springer's website. The link must be accompanied by the following text: "The final publication is available at link.springer.com". Review of Sadik J. al-Azm, Secularism, Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Meaning of Islam
Journal of the Islamic Medical Association of North America, 2012
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1998
Violent Radical Movements in the Arab World: The Ideology and Politics of Non-State Actors, 2019
The civil crisis in Yemen following the fall of President ‘Ali ‘Abdullah Salih in 2011 after thre... more The civil crisis in Yemen following the fall of President ‘Ali ‘Abdullah Salih in 2011 after three decades in power and the political rise of the Zaydi Huthis along with their tribal allies resulted in a Saudi-led bombing campaign and military intervention that created a major humanitarian crisis. Yemen, a failed nation in terms of international legitimacy became a non-state trying to act as a state with several non-state actors, including al-Qaeda and Isis. In the late 1960s Yemen, the fabled Arabic Felix of antiquity, had emerged from an isolated imamate and a colonial-era British protectorate as two separate embryonic revolutionary nation states: the Yemen Arab Republic in the north and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen in the south. The unification of these two regimes in 1990, following the thaw in the global Cold War, seemed hopeful at first but Yemen’s struggling economy was hit almost immediately with a tsunami caused by the forced return of up to a million Yemeni laborers in the fallout from the first Gulf War against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Following Salih’s hegemonic takeover of Yemen and his support of Saudi-inspired Salafism, a Zaydi political faction known as the Huthis challenged Salih and a series of short wars ensued up until the Arab Spring that toppled him. However, a GCC-brokered agreement in November 2011 left Salih in Yemen with immunity, resulting in an unexpected alliance between troops loyal to him and the Huthi insurgency, forcing out the weak interim president ‘Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. This chapter looks at the context in which the Huthis emerged as major non-state actors in a failed state with multiple competing factions after a security meltdown with reflections on future scenarios.
Culture Still Matters: Notes from the Field, 2018
The central focus of the book is on the relationship between ethnographic fieldwork and the cult... more The central focus of the book is on the relationship between ethnographic fieldwork and the culture concept in the ongoing debate over the future of anthropology, drawing on the history of both concepts. I discuss core issues, including the culture concept, the criticism of "ethnographic authority" and whether or not anthropology is a "science." This includes the impact of Literary Studies, especially the work of Edward Said, on anthropology. The anthropological framing of culture can best be understood in terms of the range of ethnographic fieldwork that informs theoretical discussion. I argue that ethnography still serves as the most appropriate anthropological method of data gathering, and that empirical methods of data collection are essential in cultural anthropology. In this book I highlight the importance of public anthropology, an anthropology engaged with contemporary social and cultural issues, including race, ethnicity, inequality and neoliberalism. The four chapters in this book build on its central theme: a critical defense of anthropology's contribution to significant social issues and to analysis of cultures worldwide. I point out anthropologists’ unique contributions to solving significant social issues, currently as in the past.
al-Iklîl, 1992
Discussion and edition of a Yemeni agricultural poem on the seasons.
Human Ecology, 2019
Yemen, located on the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, is one of the most water-scar... more Yemen, located on the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, is one of the most water-scarce countries in the world. Quite
apart from the continuing catastrophic conflict, the massive overdraw of existing groundwater due to unregulated drilling of tube
wells since the 1970s has created a major water crisis that affects the future of the county’s estimated 28 million people. While
once known for its rich traditions of agriculture due to its extensive highland terrace systems, spate flow and runoff water
harvesting, Yemen is now food insecure, relying almost entirely on food imports. This article surveys the range of water resources
in Yemen and their sustainability in light of climate change predictions. I examined government and development aid reports to
highlight the causes of the water crisis and the failure of previous governments to resolve it. The situation is even more critical
today, given the ongoing war between a Saudi-led coalition and a Huthi alliance that has created one of the worst humanitarian
crises in the world. I conclude with priorities for mitigating the water crisis and promoting sustainable agriculture for Yemen’s
post-conflict future.
Online at http://epub.oeaw.ac.at/wpsa32
Darwin's theory of evolution caused considerable controversy among conservative Christians, but h... more Darwin's theory of evolution caused considerable controversy among conservative Christians, but his ideas were not immediately available to Muslims. The first Arabic excerpts of Darwin's work were made in 1876 by a Syrian Christian who was influenced by pro-creationist Protestant missionaries. This article provides a brief historical overview of the debate among Muslim scholars about Darwin's theory of evolution. The range of reactions to Darwinian evolution in the Muslim world has included that of traditionalist scholars, who adhere to medieval views of a flat earth, to that of Western-trained Muslim scientists who see no contradiction between Darwinian evolution and Islamic religious beliefs. Since the Qur'ān does not provide as many details regarding theistic or God-guided evolution as appear in the biblical book of Genesis, Muslims can argue that Darwinian evolution does not directly contradict or harm Islamic teachings; nevertheless, " Islamic creationism " is on the rise, especially in cyberspace, particularly on the websites of Harun Yahya, who, in 2007, sent an Atlas of Creation to scientists in the Western world.
Available as open access online at http://www.lindenwood.edu/academics/beyond-the-classroom/publications/journal-of-international-global-studies/all-issues/volume-9-number-2/
Now approaching 11 months, the ongoing war in Yemen is first and foremost a war against people, w... more Now approaching 11 months, the ongoing war in Yemen is first and foremost a war against people, with upwards of 10,000 killed and many more wounded. This is one of the most dire humanitarian crises on the planet, but it is barely covered in the news media. A coalition of super rich states, able to purchase billions of dollars worth of weapons and mercenaries from as far away as Colombia, is pummeling the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula. This proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran for rhetorical control of the Islamic faith has been nothing but toxic for Yemen. War crimes are committed daily by all sides, as pointed out by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. At this point everyone is a potential victim in the flurry of violence by the alliance of the socalled Huthis (or Ansar Allah) and former President Salih's troops against the Saudiled coalition, alQaida (now known as Ansar Shariah), ISIS or Daesh and a host of militias and gangs. A blockade of food, medicine and much more has intensified the suffering and ground the economy to a halt. Unlike the situation in Syria, Yemeni refugees have nowhere to go. As disastrous as this war is for the Yemeni people, it is also a war against future generations who will lose parts of their rich historical heritage. The latest loss is the Taiz National Museum, a victim of Huthi bombing. This museum was the house of the last Zaydi Imam, Ahmad, and was left exactly as it was when he died in 1962. Earlier in the campaign the Dhamar regional museum was destroyed by Saudi bombs, blowing up local archaeological relics collected by an expedition from the University of Chicago. Bombs have also been dropped on the preIslamic site of the Marib dam and centuriesold traditional buildings in the capital Sanaa. The director of Awqaf for Sanaa reports that 136 mosques have been destroyed or damaged since the bombing campaign began. Last May the millenniumold mosque of alHadi ila alHaqq, the first Zaydi imam, was bombed in the town of Sa'da, which the Saudis have labeled a military target and have virtually leveled. In December another mosque in Sa'da was destroyed. The Saudis are aided in their war against Islam past by the extremist alQaida and Daesh elements in Yemen, which have been destroyed centuriesold Sufi shrines in the south. The war on Yemen's heritage is an extension of the Saudi penchant to replace anything preWahhabi with shopping malls and monuments to their regime. It is reported that 95% of the millenniumold buildings in Mecca have been destroyed in the past two decades alone. Even the house of Khadija, the Prophet's first wife, was leveled. As Ziauddin Sardar laments, " The dominant architectural site in the city is not the Sacred Mosque, where the Kaaba, the symbolic focus of Muslims everywhere, is. It is the obnoxious Makkah Royal Clock Tower hotel, which, at 1,972 feet, is among the world's tallest buildings. It is part of a mammoth development of skyscrapers that includes luxury shopping malls and hotels catering to the super rich. The skyline is no longer dominated by the rugged outline of encircling peaks. Ancient mountains have been flattened. The city is now surrounded by the brutalism of rectangular steel and concrete structures — an amalgam of Disneyland and Las Vegas. " The usual term for heritage in Arabic is turath. The war in Yemen has turned into a virtual " turathocide " , where political madness determines the fate of remembrance of Yemen's rich and varied history, both before the coming of Islam with the major South Arabian kingdoms and the long span of the Islamic era. But the past can never be completely erased, nor can a religion be restarted by cleansing what a particular group does not like about the past. Preservation of Yemen's heritage is not only damaging to the people of Yemen, but to everyone who believes that history matters. The events of this war will be remembered long after the last bombs have exploded because only a total genocide can eliminate a people's memory.
Contemporary Islam, 2014
Your article is protected by copyright and all rights are held exclusively by Springer Science +B... more Your article is protected by copyright and all rights are held exclusively by Springer Science +Business Media Dordrecht. This e-offprint is for personal use only and shall not be selfarchived in electronic repositories. If you wish to self-archive your article, please use the accepted manuscript version for posting on your own website. You may further deposit the accepted manuscript version in any repository, provided it is only made publicly available 12 months after official publication or later and provided acknowledgement is given to the original source of publication and a link is inserted to the published article on Springer's website. The link must be accompanied by the following text: "The final publication is available at link.springer.com". Review of Sadik J. al-Azm, Secularism, Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Meaning of Islam
Journal of the Islamic Medical Association of North America, 2012
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1998
Contemporary Islam, 2007
Edited and introduced by Bruce Lawrence. Translated by James Howarth. London: Verso, 2005. xxiii,... more Edited and introduced by Bruce Lawrence. Translated by James Howarth. London: Verso, 2005. xxiii, 292 pp.
Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2008
Page 1. Throughout the book, Rappaport traces a distinction between culturalist pro-jects and dis... more Page 1. Throughout the book, Rappaport traces a distinction between culturalist pro-jects and discourses of sovereignty. While culturalist projects are characterized by an inward-looking emphasis on the revitalization of cultural specificity, dis-courses of sovereignty stress ... ...
Published in MESA Bulletin 23(1989):157-167.
The Gulf Monographic Series is aimed to improve publication portfolio of the Center, and provide ... more The Gulf Monographic Series is aimed to improve publication portfolio of the Center, and provide opportunities for affiliated faculty and students as well and reputed non-affiliated scholars to publish in coordination with the center. The publications are double blinded peer reviewed by experts on the field selected by the Gulf Monographic Center editorial board. Abstract About the author Drone Strikes in the War on Terror: The case of Post-Arab-Spring Yemen About Drones Before the Drones Yemen and the Arab Spring The Moral Issue Compounded 4 4 5 7 10 13 18 page 4 Gulf Studies Center Monographic Series N°1
In late spring the strong winds known as barawih blow, the first known as barih al-nuffakh or bar... more In late spring the strong winds known as barawih blow, the first known as barih al-nuffakh or barih al-mishmish in Qatar, followed by barih alhuffar and barih al-'ud.
Post-Islamism: The Changing Faces of Political Islam. Edited by Asef Bayet. Oxford: Oxford Univer... more Post-Islamism: The Changing Faces of Political Islam. Edited by Asef Bayet. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2013, xiv + 351 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-976606-2
Salafism in Yemen: Transnationalism and Religious Identity. By Laurent Bonnefoy.
London: Hurst and Company, 2011, xxii + 313 pp. ISBN 978-1-849-04131-7
Whatever Happened to the Islamists? Salafis, Heavy Metal Muslims and the Lure
of Consumer Islam. Edited by Amel Boubekeur and Olivier Roy. New York: Columbia
University Press, 2012, ix + 333 pp. ISBN 978-0-231-15426-0
When Victory is not an Option: Islamist Movements in Arab Politics. By Nathan J.
Brown. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012, xii + 260 pp. ISBN 978-0-8014-7772-0
The Last Refuge: Yemen, al-Qaeda, and America’s War in Arabia. By Gregory D.
Johnsen. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2012, xv + 326 pp. ISBN 978-0-
393-08242-5
The Missing Martyrs: Why There Are So Few Muslim Terrorists. By Charles
Kurzman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, v + 248 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-976687-1
Global Salafism: Islam’s New Religious Movement. Edited by Roel Meijer. New
York: Columbia University Press, 2009, xix + 463 pp. ISBN 978-0-231-15420-8
Europe and the Islamic World: A History. By John Tolan, Gilles Veinstein and
Henry Laurens, Translated by Jane Marie Todd. Princeton: Princeton University
Press, xi + 478 pp. ISBN 978-0=691-14705-5
Political Islam: A Critical Reader. Edited by Frédéric Volpi. New York: Routledge,
2011, xv + 471 pp. ISBN 978-0-415-56028-3