ABSTRACT
The transformation of the Ottoman and British Empires over the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was indelibly linked to the subtle, daily exchanges between subject and state. Similar dynamics impacted the means by which postimperial states in Arabia asserted sovereignty over territory. The cumulative result of these daily interactions was the emergence of a complicated range of economic and political opportunities for many non-state actors. In response to people taking advantage of these opportunities, state administrations have been constantly forced to modify policies in the hope of establishing political and economic order in an otherwise contentious, often unstable environment. In this chapter I expand on this observation by focusing on the cumulative effect of newly introduced practices that attempted to realize territorial redefinition of the northern regions of Ottoman Yemen, the territories that became the frontier separating North and South Yemen and finally the modern boundary between Saudi Arabia and unified Yemen in the ‘Asīr.
