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ABOUT
Dr. Najwa Adra is a cultural anthropologist with long-term research and consulting experience in Yemen. In 1978-79, she lived in a rural tribal community in Yemen’s Central Highlands while she conducted field research on the semiotics of dancing and tribal identity. Since then, she has conducted further research elsewhere in Yemen and has consulted with FAO, UNICEF, USAID, the World Bank and DFID. In 2000-2003 she piloted the highly successful Literacy through Poetry/Heritage, an adult literacy project in which learners’ own oral traditions formed the texts from which they learned to read and write. Dr. Adra’s academic publications include articles on heritage and sustainable development, tribalism, semiotics of dancing, women’s oral poetry, and the impact of television on rural Yemen. Her development reports cover the topics of adult literacy, women in agriculture, and social exclusion in Yemen. She is currently completing a book on tribal dynamics and nation building in Yemen.
Discipline
Anthropology
Sub Areas
Conflict Resolution
Dance
Development
Education
Modernization
Geographic Areas of Interest
Gulf
Yemen
Specialties
Tribal Dynamics And Nation Building, Customary Law, Yemen
Gender Stereotyping
Semiotics Of Dancing
Languages
Arabic (advanced)
French (intermediate)
Turkish (elementary)
Education
PhD
| 1983
| Anthro
| Temple U
MA
| 1975
| Anthropology
| Brown University
Abstracts
Visions of Modernity: Tribes and National Development in Yemen
Mediating Social Hierarchies in Yemen’s Highlands
Countering Gender Stereotypes: An Ethnographic Case Study from Yemen
Yemeni Tribes as Indigenous Civil Society
