Afterlives of Revolution: Everyday Counterhistories in Southern Oman

Anthro Talks Seminars Autumn 2024

A collaboration with the Birmingham Research Institute for History and Cultures (BRIHC)

Speaker: Alice Wilson, University of Sussex

The Dhufar Revolution was fought between 1965-1976 in an attempt to depose Oman's British-backed Sultan and advance social ideals of egalitarianism and gender equality. But following counterinsurgency victory, Oman’s government expunged the revolution from sanctioned historical narratives. Ethnographic research with former revolutionaries nevertheless foregrounds the “social afterlives” of revolutionary values and networks. Veteran militants have used kinship and daily socializing to reproduce networks of social egalitarianism and commemorate the revolution in unofficial ways. Showing how those typically depicted as coopted can still reproduce counterhegemonic values, these findings challenge conventional narratives of revolution, counterinsurgency and their aftermaths.