Introduction
Mai Yamani (Arabic: مي يماني; born 1956) is a Saudi Arabian independent scholar, author and anthropologist.
Early life
Yamani was born in Cairo, Egypt in 1956 to an Iraqi mother from Mosul and a Saudi Arabian father from Mecca. Her father is Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani who gained international fame as Saudi Arabia's Minister of Petroleum Affairs. Her paternal grandfathers came from Yemen, hence the surname Yamani "from Yemen". Her early education included schooling in Baghdad, Iraq and in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. She attended secondary school at the renowned Château Mont-Choisi in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1967-1975. She received her A.B. Degree (Summa cum Laude: Highest honors) from Bryn Mawr College outside Philadelphia and subsequently attended Oxford University where she was the first Saudi Arabian woman to obtain a M.St. and a D.Phil. from Oxford in Social Anthropology.
Career
She started her career as a university lecturer in Saudi Arabia and became a scholar at leading international think tanks in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East. She has been a research fellow at the Royal Institute for International Affairs in London, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, and a visiting scholar at Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. She speaks fluent Arabic, English, French and Spanish, and has a working knowledge of Persian, Hebrew and Italian.
Works
- Changed Identities: The Challenge of the New Generation in Saudi Arabia. Royal Institute of International Affairs. 2000. ISBN 978-1-86203-088-6. (Arabic: هويات متغيرة : تحديات الجيل الجديد في السعودية )
- Cradle of Islam: The Hijaz and the Quest for Identity in Saudi Arabia. I.B.Tauris. 21 August 2009. ISBN 978-0-85773-110-4.