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Slepukhina O. Ethnopolitical Identification on Social Media in South Arabia

Olga Slepukhina
Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation
ORCID: 0000-0003-3484-2612
E-mail: olya2s2s@mail.ru

 

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ABSTRACT. The unification of Yemen on May 22, 1990 was greeted with hope for joint development, however, soon the mood in Yemeni regions changed, and identity polarization rapidly overtook the country. The article examines how changes in ethnopolitical identity are manifested at the lexical level, and analyzes the use of self-designations and pejoratives by Yemeni social media users. Choosing a designation term, the user shows his attitude to the political situation in the country and receives support from those who share his views, which strengthens the feeling of belonging to a particular group. The same lexeme, when used by different users, can have a different meaning. In self-names, the speaker's region of origin plays an important role, while the pejoratives are based on an attempt to ridicule the opponent's intellectual abilities, his origin, political connections and loyalties. Attention to the choice of one or another term allows a more detailed understanding of the local ethno-political discourse. The conflict between North and South gets most attention and distracts from the processes outside of Sana‘a and Aden, but the variety of collective names enables the researcher to resist the temptation of generalization that arises in the study of local identities.

 

KEYWORDS: Yemen, South Arabia, South Yemen, ethnopolitical identity, ethnonyms, social media

 

FOR CITATION: Slepukhina O. Ethnopolitical Identification on Social Media in South Arabia. Kunstkamera. 2023. 2(20): 144–152. (In Russian). doi 10.31250/2618-8619-2023-2(20)-144-152

   

DOI 10.31250/2618-8619-2023-2(20)-144-152
УДК 316.47

 

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