Suchergebnisse

1. Introduction -- 2. Rowshan: Chitral village life -- 3. Emotions upside-down: affection and Islam in present day Rowshan -- 4. The play of the mind: debating village Muslims -- 5. Mahfils and musicians: new Muslims in Markaz -- 6. Scholars and scoundrels: Rowshan's amulet making ulama -- 7. To eat or not to eat? Ismai'lis and Sunnis in Rowshan -- 8. Conclusion.

This article explores the lives and activities of Afghan Sikhs living in the United Kingdom. Rather than analysing Afghan Sikhs as a one-dimensional "community" defined in relationship to a singular "identity" based on a shared geographical origin in Afghanistan, the article emphasises the ways in which they have formed multiple and dynamic networks across shifting geographical and historical contexts. Ethnographically, it focuses on the importance of commercial spaces, practices, and relations to the formation of such networks and the modes of social life within which these are entwined. The article argues that particular forms of everyday cosmopolitanism arise in the context of participation in long-distance commerce. Cosmopolitan sensibilities coexist with distinctions based on caste, language, and regional background, and are consciously regarded by some of the traders as markers of skill and social accomplishment.

Forschende aus den Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften haben in den letzten Jahren versucht, Afghanistan mithilfe eines inter-asiatischen Ansatzes zu fassen. Das bedeutet, dass die Aufmerksamkeit weniger isolierten Studien über einzelne Sub-Regionen galt, und stattdessen inter-asiatische Verbindungen, zirkuläre Bewegungen und Vergleiche in den Blick genommen wurden - innerhalb, zwischen und jenseits von asiatischen Kontexten. Solche Ansätze ermöglichen eine interdisziplinäre Asienforschung und stellen die bisher als gegeben angenommenen Grenzen von Nationalstaaten, Kulturräumen und großen aggregierten Gesellschaften in Frage - und auch die Tendenz, Asien mit 'dem Westen' zu vergleichen. Nach dem Rückzug der NATO-Truppen aus Afghanistan 2021 und der erneuten Machtübernahme der Taliban bietet es sich an, die Bedeutung von inter-asiatischen Ansätzen für Afghanistan-Analysen kritisch zu betrachten. Etwa Historiker:innen erkennen zunehmend, dass sich in Afghanistan inter-asiatische kulturelle, politische und ökonomische Dynamiken überschneiden, dem Land aber weiterhin nur eine marginale Bedeutung für die Welt und Asien zugeschrieben wird. Dieser Beitrag baut auf inter-asiatischen Forschungsbeiträgen auf und betont die Bedeutung verschiedener Netzwerke hochmobiler Afghan:innen: Für die Verbindung des Landes zu anderen Regionen, und für die Vermittlung und Rückwirkung politischer Entwicklungen von anderswo auf Afghanistan.

Scholars across the social sciences and humanities working on Afghanistan have in recent years sought to explore the country's dynamics in relation to an inter-Asia approach: that means, moving beyond the discrete study of subregions and focusing instead on connections, circulations, and comparisons within, across, and beyond Asian contexts. This approach has enabled interdisciplinary work on Asia to question taken-for-granted boundaries of nation states, culture areas, and large aggregate societies. It has also challenged the tendency of work in the field to revolve around comparisons between Asia and the West. The withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan in 2021 and the return to power of the Taliban provides a moment to reflect critically on the implications of inter-Asian studies to the analysis of Afghanistan. Historians are increasingly recognising that Afghanistan criss-crosses cultural, political, and economic inter-Asian dynamics; and yet the country is still widely depicted as of marginal significance, both to Asia and to the wider world. This article builds on the inter-Asian studies literature and documents the role that a range of diverse networks comprising mobile people from Afghanistan play: in connecting the country to multiple regional contexts and in mediating the influence of the political trends in these on Afghanistan.

AbstractThis article consists of an analysis of ethnographic material on Afghan trading networks involved in both the export of commodities from China to a variety of settings across Eurasia and the movement of 'refugees' from Afghanistan to Europe. Much recent work on trading networks has deployed the concept of trust to understand the functioning of such social formations. By contrast, in this article I assess the durability of Afghan networks in three ways. First, recognition of how they are polycentric and multi‐nodal. Second, how they are successful in transforming their collective aims and projects in changing shifting political and economic circumstances. Third, how they are made up of individuals able to switch their statuses and activities within trading networks over time. Furthermore, I argue that a focus on the precise ways in which traders entrust capital, people and commodities to one another, reveals the extent to which social and commercial relationships inside trading networks are frequently impermanent and pregnant with concerns about mistrust and contingency. Recognition of this suggests that scholars should focus on practices of entrustment rather than abstract notions of trust in their analyses of trading networks per se, as well as seek to understand the ways in which these practices enable actors to handle and address questions of contingency.

This article consists of an analysis of ethnographic material on Afghan trading networks involved in both the export of commodities from China to a variety of settings across Eurasia and the movement of 'refugees' from Afghanistan to Europe. Much recent work on trading networks has deployed the concept of trust to understand the functioning of such social formations. By contrast, in this article I assess the durability of Afghan networks in three ways. First, recognition of how they are polycentric and multi‐nodal. Second, how they are successful in transforming their collective aims and projects in changing shifting political and economic circumstances. Third, how they are made up of individuals able to switch their statuses and activities within trading networks over time. Furthermore, I argue that a focus on the precise ways in which traders entrust capital, people and commodities to one another, reveals the extent to which social and commercial relationships inside trading networks are frequently impermanent and pregnant with concerns about mistrust and contingency. Recognition of this suggests that scholars should focus on practices of entrustment rather than abstract notions of trust in their analyses of trading networks per se, as well as seek to understand the ways in which these practices enable actors to handle and address questions of contingency.

This article explores intersections between masculinity, mobility, generation and commerce through the everyday lives of Afghan men who make up trading networks that are active across Eurasia. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork among Afghan traders in Ukraine's port city of Odessa and in the international trading city of Yiwu in China. Building on recent work in anthropology concerning the 'emergent' nature of Middle Eastern masculinities, the article brings attention to the flexible and adaptable nature of the notions of masculinity held and performed by mobile Afghan traders. It emphasises the need for such conceptions of masculinity to be treated historically and draws attention to the forms of caregiving that are especially important to the traders' intimate lives and self-understandings. The article also highlights the significance of complex notions of trust both to the traders' articulation of conceptions of manliness and to their everyday modes of securing a livelihood.

This article explores the relevance of the concept of Silk Road for understanding the patterns of trade and exchange between China, Eurasia and the Middle East. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork in the city of Yiwu, in China's Zhejiang Province. Yiwu is a node in the global distribution of Chinese 'small commodities' and home to merchants and traders from across Asia and beyond. The article explores the role played by traders from Afghanistan in connecting the city of Yiwu to markets and trading posts in the world beyond. It seeks to bring attention to the diverse types of networks involved in such forms of trade, as well as their emergence and development over the past thirty years.