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Tribal Women, Property and Border

An Auto-Ethnographic Critique of the Riwaj (Tradition) on the Pakistan-Afghanistan Borderland

Bibliographic Data

ID3948754
AuthorsNoreen Naseer (0000-0001-9900-8608, University of Peshawar, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume24
Issue2
Pages426-443
Publication date2019-03-15
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeopolitics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1465-0045 • E-ISSN: 1557-3028
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14650045.2018.1543662
OpenAlexW2901263343
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited2

This paper explores the cultural status of tribal women living in the Pakistan–Afghanistan borderland. Pakhtun tribes, a patriarchal and paternalistic society, practising tribal customs (Riwaj/Dastoor), inhabit this borderland. Owing to these tribal customs, the tribal Pakhtun society treats women much like property of their men. This essay focuses on how a tribal woman is socially discriminated by denying her certain fundamental rights. I discuss six tribal customs, by giving examples based on my field work, through which tribal women are treated as personal property by her male kin—father, brother, uncle or husband. These customs include shamilaat (denial of the right to inheritance in shared family’s and tribe’s property), miratah (declaring a woman as issueless in the absence of a male kin and thereby denying her property), rasnama/valver/khawara (bride-money), ghairat/nang (honour and pride), badala/swara (barter, as in getting father or brother a bride or as in exchange for settlement of dispute) and ghag (pronouncing the desire to marry a specific woman or in some cases to spite a family)

Brother · Dignity · Dowry · Ethnography · Honour · Kinship · Political science · Pride · Sociology · Tribe · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Law · Philippine History and Culture · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East · South Asian Studies and Conflicts

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Unique citing works5
Citations per year1
Citation span2021 - 2026 (6)
Citation velocitycurrent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 5

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