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Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies

Photo of Dr Ross Porter

Dr Ross Porter

Lecturer

Overview

BA (SOAS), MPhil (Cantab), PhD (Cantab)
My current research is a study of revolutionary ethics in contemporary Yemen, exploring the relationship between freedom, value and radical discontinuity in the formation of revolutionary identities. I am also working on an ethnographic monograph which will chronicle the last several years of revolution and counter-revolution in Yemen.

Publications

_{Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.}

| 2025 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2017 | 2016 |

2025

Porter R. (2025) Concept and Critique: Essays for a Political Anthropology of Yemen, Syracuse University Press.

2022

Porter R, Al-Eriani K. (2022) Resisting Closure: Reflections on the Tenth Anniversary of Revolution in Yemen.

2021

Porter R. (2021) The burden of choice and the triumph of the event, HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, volume 11, no. 2, pages 601-618, DOI:10.1086/715753. [PDF]

2020

Porter R. (2020) Security against the State in Revolutionary Yemen, Cultural Anthropology, volume 35, no. 2, DOI:10.14506/ca35.2.02. [PDF]

2017

Porter R. (2017) Freedom, Power and the Crisis of Politics in Revolutionary Yemen, Middle East Critique, volume 26, no. 3, pages 265-281, DOI:10.1080/19436149.2017.1328875.

2016

Porter R. (2016) Tricking Time, Overthrowing a Regime: Reining in the Future in the Yemeni Youth Revolution, The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology, volume 34, no. 1, DOI:10.3167/ca.2016.340107. [PDF]

Teaching

Modules taught

ARA2134 - Ethnography of the Middle East
ARA3045 - War, Violence and Revolution in the Modern Middle East

Biography

I received my PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge in 2015. My thesis, “Being Change in Change Square: An ethnography of revolutionary life in Yemen”, was the product of long-term fieldwork at the heart of the revolutionary movement in Sana’a. After completing my PhD, I held a brief Visiting Fellowship in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University and a Research Fellowship at the University of Zurich.