Anthropologizing Afghanistan
Colonial and Postcolonial Encounters
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2295294 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Alessandro Monsutti (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 42 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 269-285 |
| Publication date | 2013-10-21 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Annual Review of Anthropology (BOOK_SERIES) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0084-6570 • E-ISSN: 1545-4290 |
| Publisher | Annual Reviews (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1146/annurev-anthro-092412-155444 |
| OpenAlex | W2138440093 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 23 |
| References cited | 92 |
Afghanistan is a key region in and from which scholars can reflect on the potentials and challenges of anthropology. Structured chronologically and analytically, this review analyzes the persistence up to present day of the colonial image of an inward-looking society without, however, equating the current interplay of states and nonstate actors to the international context of the nineteenth century or the Cold War. The 1960s and 1970s were a productive period for research on the country focusing on pastoral nomadism, ethnicity, state, and tribe. When the opportunity for long-term fieldwork in Afghanistan was temporary interrupted in the 1980s with the Soviet occupation, anthropologists were forced to shift focus. Many worked among Afghan refugees in Pakistan as well as on the diaspora, including on the transnational networks of migrants. The international intervention in late 2001 incited an academic scramble for Afghanistan. The article reflects on the deontological challenges of research in an environment characterized by the demand for immediate policy-relevant knowledge while arguing that the study of the overlapping sovereignties linked to the interplay of international and nongovernmental organizations with the state and military forces in Afghanistan contribute to larger current debates in anthropology
Afghan · Colonialism · Context (archaeology · Development economics · Diaspora · Ethnic group · Ethnology · Geography · Indigenous · Political economy · Political science · Refugee · Sociology · State (computer science · Tribe · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Law · Peacebuilding and International Security · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East · South Asian Studies and Conflicts
Imagining Afghanistan
Recruitment and Use of Child Soldiers in Afghanistan
Les effets pervers de l’exportation du droit dans des guerres civiles. L’intervention militaire en Afghanistan (2001-2014)
Between Imperial Rule and Sovereignty
Anthropology and inclusive development
Social capital and structural disadvantages
Playing the Ethnic Card
State-building and the armed forces in modern Afghanistan
Rejoinder to Egor Lazarev’s Review of
Afghanistan’s Political Development Dilemma
Micronesian Chiefs under American Rule
Crisis and Opportunity
Writing travel and the genealogical imagination
Split Return
Making local knowledge
Reading legal ethnographies to re-map legal pluralism
Rediscovering Afghan Fine Arts
Outside the wire
Social sciences and public debates
Orientalist constructions of the frontier pashtuns
Is it even worth it? The ethics of researching armed groups in 'the field
Legal Rule and Tribal Politics
The Regulation of Informal Trade Credit (Ograyi) in Afghanistan
The fragmentation of Afghanistan
The Conflict of tribe and state in Iran and Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Connecting Histories in Afghanistan
Violence, suffering, and mental health in Afghanistan
Ethnic groups and boundaries
Bartered Brides
Les relations familiales à distance. Ethnographies des migrations afghanes
The Making of Modern Afghanistan
Afghanistan Historiography and Pashtun Islam
Development on-air
Playing with Fire? The International Community's Democratization Experiment in Afghanistan
Local Perceptions of Assistance to Afghanistan
Itinérances transnationales
B ringing M ore E ffective G overnance to A fghanistan
Afghan Migratory Strategies and the Three Solutions to the Refugee Problem
Refugee Studies and the international refugee regime
Beyond Swat
State, national awareness and levels of identity in Afghanistan from monarchy to Islamic state
Factors in the Residential Choices of Self-Settled Afghan Refugees in Peshawar, Pakistan
Marginality and Migration
Marginality and Migration
Gender Issues in the Afghanistan Diaspora
Aiding violence or building peace? The role of international aid in Afghanistan
Reconstruction as modernisation
Afghanistan
Constructing sovereignty for security
Bazaar Politics. Power and Pottery in an Afghan Market Town
Introduction
Cooperation, Remittances, and Kinship among the Hazaras
A Desolate Voice”
Problems in Establishing Legitimacy in Afghanistan
Editing the Past
Afghanistan and the Opium World Market
The Iranian Afghans
Shi'ism and social protest
Disputes in a Court of Sharia , Kunar Valley, Afghanistan, 1885–1890
Theory from the South
Buzkashi, Game and Power in Afghanistan
Guerre et terre en Afghanistan
Migration as a Rite of Passage
Suffering, hope, and entrapment
An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul
Ethnoscapes, National Territorialisation, and the Afghan War
Who owns the peace? Aid, reconstruction, and peacebuilding in Afghanistan
Old Dilemmas or New Challenges? The Politics of Gender and Reconstruction in Afghanistan
Acknowledging Afghanistan
Music in the Mind
Islam and State-Building in a Tribal Society Afghanistan
Summoning Muslims
Tribe, Diaspora, and Sainthood in Afghan History
Les Trois pôles de l'identité afghane au Pakistan
Violence légitime et violence illégitime. À propos des pratiques et des représentations dans la crise afghane
Feminism, the Taliban, and Politics of Counter-Insurgency
Pakistan Society
The Advent of Pashtūnmāldārsin north-western Afghanistan
État, Islam et Tribus Face aux Organisations Internationales
Music in the Mind
Sentimental Ambivalence and the Exegesis of "Self" in Afghanistan
Print Islam
Men of Influence in Nuristan
Afghanistan, Ethnography, and the New World Order
Before Taliban
Learning From the Swat Pathans
Eat This, It'll Do You a Power of Good
Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others
War, Factionalism, and the State in Afghanistan
Ethnology
The Ecology of Rural Ethnic Groups and the Spatial Dimensions of Power1
When More is Less
The State of Globalization
The Afghan Refugees in Pakistan
Sovereignty Revisited
Frontiers and Wars
Who are the Kuchi? Nomad self-identities in Afghanistan
Fuzzy Sovereignty
The Trans-Border Traffic of Afghan Modernism
Mad Mullahs and Englishmen
| Unique citing works | 23 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,92 |
| Citation span | 2014 - 2025 (12) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 23 |