Modern Afghanistan

M. Nazif Shahrani is Professor of Anthropology, Central Eurasian Studies, and Near Eastern Languages and Culture at Indiana University. He is author of The Kirghiz and Wakhi of Afghanistan: Adaptation to Closed Frontiers and War and editor (with Robert L. Canfield) of Revolutions and Rebellions in Afghanistan: Anthropological Perspectives.

As a broad yet detailed introduction to modern Afghanistan, this interdisciplinary collection of essays on social and political life in Afghanistan over the past 40 years is arguably one of the best available.(American Ethnologist)

• PrefaceAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Impact of Four Decades of War and Violence on Afghan Society and Political Culture / M. Nazif Shahrani Part I: Technologies of Power—Competing Discourses on National Identity, Statehood and State Stability 1. Afghanistan: A Turbulent State in Transition / Amin Saikal 2. Afghanistan's "Traditional" Islam in Transition: Deep Roots of the Taliban Extremism / Bashir Ahmad Ansari 3. Language, Poetry and Identity in Afghanistan: Poetic Texts, Changing Contexts / Mohammad Omar Sharifi 4. Lineages of the Urban State: Locating Continuity and Change in Post-2001 Kabul / Khalid Homayun Nadiri and M. Farshid Alemi Hakimyar 5. Webs and Spiders: Four Decades of Violence, Intervention and Statehood in Afghanistan (1978-2016) / Timor Sharan 6. Merchant-Warlords: Changing Forms of Leadership in Afghanistan's Unstable Political Economy / Noah Coburn 7. Borders, Access to Strategic Resources, and Challenges to State Stability / Ahmad Shayeq Qassem 8. Brought to you by Foreigners, Warlords, and Local Activists: TV and the Afghan Culture Wars / Wazhmah Osman Part II: Personal and Collective Identities, Gender Relations, and Trust Deficit 9. "The War Destroyed Our Society": Masculinity, Violence and Shifting Cultural Idioms among Afghan Pashtun / Andrea Chiovenda 10. Engendering the Taliban / Sonia Ahsan 11. Anticipating Discontinuous Change: Afghanistan in Retrospect and Prospect / Robert L. Canfield and Fahim Masoud Part III: Adapting to New Political Ecology of Uncertainties at the Margins 12. Badakhshanis since the Saur Revolution: Struggle, Triumph, Hope, and Uncertainty / M. Nazif Shahrani 13. Hazara Civil Society Activists and Local, National, and International Political Institutions / Melissa Kerr Chiovenda 14. Adapting to Three Decades of Uncertainty: The Flexibility of Social Institutions among Baloch groups in Afghanistan / Just Boedeker 15. Party Institutionalization Meets Women's Empowerment? Acquiring Power and Influence in Afghanistan / Ann Larson Part IV: Violence, Social Services Delivery, and Rising Trust Deficit16. Childbirth and Social Change in Afghanistan / Kylea Laina Liese 17. Signatures of Distrust in Contemporary Afghanistan: More than a Decade of Development Effort for Vulnerable Groups; the Case of Disability / Parul Bakhshi and Jean-Francois Trani Index