Ideology in Context: An Agential Approach to the Study of Houthism

The stellar rise of the Yemen’s Houthis (Ansar Allah) is not just a story of military conquest but also of ideological innovation, which has transformed northern Yemen and reshaped power relations in the Middle East. Despite their importance, the unanswered question of what the Houthis “really” want still looms large in academic debates and political circles. This project will transform our understanding of the Houthis by analysing their massive ideological output and triangulating it with a vast corpus of unexplored indigenous sources and findings from digital (remote) fieldwork. As the first study of its kind, this project pursues three primary objectives: (1) Provide unprecedented insights into Houthi ideology and its interplay with Yemen’s social, intellectual, historical, religious, and institutional frameworks, including its foreign inspirations, media, and symbolic and ritual expressions. (2) Explore Houthi ideology’s dual nature as both a normative discourse and an everyday practice, offering empirically informed understandings of how ideology operates and impacts local communities, and (3) use Houthi ideology as a case study to develop a novel “agential” and multiscalar theoretical approach to the study of ideology within social and cultural anthropology, and related fields.The results of this project will redefine the anthropology of ideology and provide unparalleled insights into the Houthi phenomenon. Its innovative theoretical and methodological contributions will advance social and cultural anthropology, enhancing its relevance and providing novel approaches and tools for studying emerging ideologies in similar contexts globally. On a trans-disciplinary level, the results will inform and revise diplomatic, political, and humanitarian efforts to better understand the crisis in Yemen and develop tailored, sustainable solutions.