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Testimonial Photography and Thinking through Violence – ‘we do not eat fruit because our garden was burnt’
Full text linkTwo weeks prior to the complete withdrawal of the United States/NATO troops from Afghanistan on 30 August 2021, the Taliban took over the country. Focusing on the airport scene, the media presented a picture of chaos and volatility, caused by the failure of the US-trained Afghan military force to protect the people. Barely any mention was made of how women sustain their families and communities in everyday life, a site of my ethnographic research conducted in the fall of 2008 and 2009, respectively. To acknowledge women’s survival strategies, I focus on testimonial photography, a genre that recognises that the past is present and can be collectively recalled through photographs. Photographs have their own language, motivating us to imagine alternative ways of being. Layered reading of images allows unacknowledged violence to come to light. Viewers are then motivated to engage into critical reflection
Wonneberger, Astrid, Katja Weidtmann und Sabina Stelzig-Willutzki (Hrsg.) (2018) Familienwissenschaft: Grundlagen und Überblick. Wiesbaden: Springer VS
Full text linkEditorial: Der Fall Kabuls 2021: Hintergründe, Effekte, Resonanzen. Eine Sonderausgabe (nicht nur) für die interessierte Öffentlichkeit
Full text linkNach Jahrzehnten der Instabilität erschütterte Afghanistan im Spätsommer 2021 ein neuerlicher und zugleich tragisch wohlbekannter Umbruch: Die Taliban übernahmen die Macht. Scheinbar brauchten sie dafür nur wenige Tage, tatsächlich kündigte sich der Fall Kabuls aber schon weit vorher an. Um genauer zu verstehen, wie das passieren konnte, braucht es detaillierte und zuverlässige Einblicke: Wie sehen Menschen aus Afghanistan die Situation – vor Ort und im Ausland? In welcher Lebenswirklichkeit fanden und finden die jüngsten Entwicklungen statt? Welche religiösen und sozialen Hintergründe treiben die Taliban an? Mit Fragen wie diesen beschäftigt sich die vorliegende Sonderausgabe. Sie versammelt Beiträge, die die Hintergründe, Effekte und Resonanzen des Falls von Kabul 2021 verständlich beschreiben und einordnen.
Die Artikel helfen etwa dabei, „die“ Taliban differenzierter zu verstehen, sie erzählen vom Alltag in afghanischen Kleinstädten, vom Einsatz als Soldat in Afghanistan und von Familien, die seit Generationen auf der Flucht sind. Damit möchte das Heft einerseits dazu beitragen, eines der weltpolitisch wichtigsten Ereignisse der 2020er-Jahre zu verstehen. Andererseits zeigt es, dass jeweils aktuelle ethnologische Arbeiten zu Afghanistan immer auch ein anschauliches Bild davon zeichnen, wo die Ethnologie als gesamtes Fach gerade steht (Monsutti 2013).
Die Sonderausgabe richtet sich nicht etwa nur an Fachkolleg:innen, die relevante und zugleich leserfreundliche Fachartikel schätzen, sondern besonders auch an Nichtethnolog:innen, die sich für Afghanistan interessieren. Der Mittelteil enthält das Kernstück dieses Hefts: Acht Texte verschiedener Afghanistan-Expert:innen. Das Editorial zu Beginn und das Nachwort am Ende des Hefts machen Vorschläge, in welchen Gruppierungen man die Artikel im Mittelteil lesen kann, um sich jeweils über unterschiedliche Haupt- und Querschnittsthemen zu informieren. Im Anhang findet sich ein kurzer Abriss wichtiger historischer Ereignisse in Afghanistan, der hilft, die Kontexte der Artikel zu verstehen
Who are ‘the’ Taliban? Life Worlds between Pashtun Traditions, Islamism, and Globalisation
Full text linkThis article deals with the social background and the life worlds of the followers of the Taliban movement. It begins with an analysis of the essential social structures of Pashtun tribal society. It argues that both the Afghan wars, which are ongoing since 1979, and the consequent mass exodus had a tremendous impact on the everyday life of Pashtun society. They resulted in a contextualised confluence of values and norms, rooted in tribal culture on the one side and militant Islam on the other. The policy of the Taliban movement anticipated such normative changes within Pashtun society. Particularly the everlasting reference to Islam, the defence of local autonomy, and the emphasis on social justice emerged as key elements of the self-perception of the Taliban movement. Accordingly, my key argument is that the restoration and maintenance of (idealised) local social orders have been the driving force for the success of the Taliban movement. However, this tendency of preserving an (idealised) local order in the name of Islam is not unique to the Taliban but can be found across the Islamic world and can be regarded as a current phenomenon of globalisation
Letting Die: The Spectacle of Deporting Afghans from Germany
Full text linkAround 30,000 Afghans have been denied protection in Germany and are categorised as ausreisepflichtig (required to leave the country). Of these, just over 1,000 people have been removed over the four years that removals were implemented, and that at extraordinary costs. For all who are categorised as ‘deportable’, this was a constant source of fear and insecurity – never knowing who would be next on the list. This article outlines the German politics behind the deportation of Afghans, with a focus on the years 2016–2021. It argues that deportations have become a significant element of the ‘border spectacle’ (De Genova 2013), staging a drama of exclusion that affirms the national order of being. I frame the deportation spectacle as a part of German biopolitics. According to Foucault, biopolitics is about ‘to make live and to let die’. Whilst biopolitical perspectives mostly focus on ‘make live’, I argue that deportations are part of the inevitable dark side of biopolitics pointed out by Foucault: that of letting die
Editorial: The Fall of Kabul in 2021: Background, Effects, Resonance: A Special Issue (not only) for the Interested Public
Full text linkIn the late summer of 2021, after decades of instability, Afghanistan was rocked by yet another tragically familiar upheaval when the Taliban assumed power. It seemed to take them only days, but in actual fact there had been signs long before that the fall of Kabul was imminent. To understand more clearly how this was possible, we need detailed and reliable insights. How do people from Afghanistan – both inside the country and abroad – perceive the situation? What are the real-life conditions for the latest developments? What underlying religious and social factors motivate the Taliban? This special issue addresses questions such as these. It brings together articles that describe and contextualise the background, effects, and resonance of the fall of Kabul in 2021. The articles help, for example, to develop a more nuanced understanding of ‘the’ Taliban; they tell about everyday life in small Afghan towns, about deployment as a soldier in Afghanistan, and about families who have been refugees for generations. On the one hand, the issue contributes to an understanding of one of the most important events in global politics in the early 2020s. On the other, it shows that anthropological studies on Afghanistan offer a vivid impression of the current state of anthropology as a discipline (Monsutti 2013). This special issue is aimed not only at colleagues within the discipline who appreciate relevant yet reader-friendly articles, but also – and especially – at non-anthropologists with an interest in Afghanistan. The main section contains the centrepiece of this issue: eight texts by various Afghanistan experts. The editorial and the afterword frame the issue and suggest various main and cross-cutting themes for which the articles can be read. The appendix offers a short outline of important historical events in Afghanistan, to provide background and context for the articles
Wer ‚die‘ Taliban sind: Lebenswelten zwischen paschtunischen Traditionen, militantem Islamismus und Globalisierung
Full text linkDieser Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit dem sozialen Hintergrund und den Lebenswelten von Anhängern der Taliban-Bewegung. Ausgangspunkt der Argumentation sind bestimmte Sozialstrukturen der paschtunischen Gesellschaft. Ich zeige auf, dass sowohl die seit 1979 andauernden Kriege in Afghanistan als auch der sich anschließende Massenexodus enorme Auswirkungen auf das paschtunische Alltagsleben hatten. Beides führte zu einer kontextspezifischen Verschmelzung von Werten und Normen, die einerseits in bestimmten Charakteristika der paschtunischen Kultur verankert sind, andererseits im militanten Islam. Die Bewegung der Taliban verstand es, solche gesellschaftlichen Veränderungen zu antizipieren und zur Grundlage ihres Erfolges zu machen. Vor allem der Verweis auf den Islam, die Verteidigung der lokalen Autonomie und die Betonung sozialer Gerechtigkeit erwiesen sich als entscheidend für die Selbstwahrnehmung der Taliban-Anhängerschaft. Entsprechend lautet meine Hauptthese, dass das Streben nach Wiederherstellung und Aufrechterhaltung von (idealisierten) lokalen Gesellschaftsordnungen die Taliban-Bewegung erfolgreich machte. Dabei ist die Tendenz, eine (idealisierte) lokale Ordnung im Namen des Islam bewahren zu wollen, nicht etwa einzigartig für die Taliban: Stattdessen beobachtet man Ähnliches vielerorts in der islamischen Welt, und kann es auch als aktuelles Globalisierungsphänomen deuten
Fractured Bonds, Dithering Identities: Afghan-Swiss Diaspora Conflict Narratives
Full text linkThis article documents how decades of conflict in Afghanistan have uprooted local families and how multiple layers of different-yet-similar war experiences are interpreted by, and continuously have impact on, Afghans in diasporic contexts. It draws on biographic narratives of Afghan refugees who arrived in Switzerland between 1978 and 2015, spotlighting three persons and their particular entanglements with war and war stories. The article reflects on the reasons for their departure, including the fault lines or the active involvement in conflict that triggered their journey to Europe. The narratives shed light on how ordinary Afghans understand the concept of jihad, what they regard as reasons worth fighting for, how they experience ethnoscape- and foreign country-related dimensions of Afghan conflicts, and how unspoken conflict memories affect the younger diaspora generation
Potters, Warlords, and the End of the Islamic Republic
Full text linkThe town of Istalif, located in the plains of Parwan north of Kabul, and the political lives of the potters that live there, provide a rich ethnographic example for how even areas that supported the US invasion and the new government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan eventually became disillusioned with the rhetoric from these groups and their failure to produce real change in the lives of ordinary Afghans. The funding, both military and development, that poured into the country, particularly between 2009 and 2013, enriched a regional elite that was not interested in distributing wealth and political power, unlike more local leaders. This shift in the socio-economy of power in Istalif, and elsewhere in the country, helps explain the rapid collapse of the Islamic Republic, but also shows how local politics in Afghanistan reshaped US policy and its approach to intervention and empire