The Kirghiz and Wakhi of Afghanistan: Adaptation to Closed

The Kirghiz and Wakhi of Afghanistan: Adaptation to Closed Frontiers and War

An extended new Preface and a new Epilogue written after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, place The Kirghiz and Wakhi of Afghanistan, originally published in 1979, in the context of a vastly changed world. The original book describes the cultural and ecological adaptation of the nomadic Kirghiz and their agriculturalist neighbors, the Wakhi, to high altitudes and a frigid climate in the Wakhan Corridor, a panhandle of Afghanistan that borders Pakistan, the former Soviet Union, and the Peopleâ€™s Republic of China.

The new Preface challenges the assumption that the root cause of terrorism is religious. Shahrani asserts that the problem of terrorism is fundamentally political and is historically linked to the inappropriate model of the centralized nation-state introduced to Afghanistan by colonial regimes.

The differing responses of the Kirghiz and Wakhi to the Marxist coup are discussed in the new Epilogue. Shahrani has closely followed the flight of the Kirghiz to Pakistan in 1978 and their eventual resettlement among resentful Kurdish villagers in eastern Turkey in 1982. The ethnographic documentation and analysis of the transformation of Kirghiz society, politics, economics, and demography since their exodus from the Pamirs offers valuable lessons to our understanding of the dynamics and true resilience of small pastoral nomadic communities.
Country USA
Brand University of Washington Press
Manufacturer University of Washington Press
Binding Paperback
ItemPartNumber 9780295982625
UnitCount 1
UPCs 884399780442
EANs 0884399780442
ReleaseDate 0000-00-00

Country	USA
Brand	University of Washington Press
Manufacturer	University of Washington Press
Binding	Paperback
ItemPartNumber	9780295982625
UnitCount	1
UPCs	884399780442
EANs	0884399780442
ReleaseDate	0000-00-00

The Kirghiz and Wakhi of Afghanistan: Adaptation to Closed Frontiers and War

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