“C,” who runs the blog “Afghanistanica” has written some nice notes about my work. As I could find no way to add a comment on that blog I will place my comment here, in hopes that “C”, a graduate student somewhere, will see it.
He notes that it is hard for folks in Afghanistan to get access to materials written about that country, and of course he is right. This is why I have tried to put as much material of my own on the web. The easiest way to get access to them is to go to my “home” page [http://artsci.wustl.edu/~canfrobt/home.html] where there are links to my publications and recent writings, some of which are not yet published. I have put most of these works on the web specifically for anyone in Afghanistan who might want to see them.
He also says that some of his Afghan friends are surprised that any non-Hazara would be writing about the Hazaras. They claim to know Mousavi’s work but clearly have not read it, as Mousavi gives a lot of attention to the work of many others who have written on the Hazaras. “C” cites many works that anyone interested in Afghanistan would want to see. To his list I have a few additions.
• Two short articles by me on the Hazaras have just been published this summer: “Recollections of a Hazara wedding in the 1930s” and “Trouble in Birgilich” [In: Jeff Sahadeo and Russell Zanca (eds), Everyday Life in Central Asia. Bloomington: Indiana University].
• The most important monograph on the Hazaras to have been published in many years is Alessandro Monsutti, War and Migration: Social Networks and Economic Strategies of the Hazaras of Afghanistan, Middle East Studies: History, Politics, and Law, translated by Patrick Camiller (New York / London : Routledge, 2005). My adulatory review will soon appear in Iranian Studies.
• Another important work – embellished with many fine pictures and maps -- that gives a lot of attention to Hazaras has just been published, Klaus Ferdinand, Afghan Nomads: Caravans, Conflicts and Trade in Afghanistan and British India 1800-1980. The Carlsberg Foundation’s Nomad Research Project, vol. 11. Rhodos, 2006. Ferdinand has published studies on the Hazaras that are now classic, and much of that material is reproduced or updated here; his death before the book could be published deprives us of one of the great authorities on Afghanistan. Of course the main preoccupation of the book is Pushtun nomads, a topic on which Ferdinand and other Danish anthropologists have made major contributions for years. My appreciative review will appear in Journal of Asian Studies.
• For those who are interested, another work directly bearing on Afghanistan soon to appear is edited by Robert Crews and Amin Tarzi, entitled The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan (Harvard University Press) http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/CRETAL.html ; my contribution to it is called “Fraternity, power, and time in Central Asia.”
Also, several of us have a book on Central Asia under review that has a number of articles on Afghanistan.
A late addendum to this post, added a few days later:
I should have included the work of Harpviken in the above list. This is one of the most valuable recent contribution to Hazara studies:
Kristian Berg Harpviken, "Political Mobilization among the Hazara of Afghanistan: 1978-1992," (Oslo:Institutt for Sosiologi, Universistetet i Oslo (M.A. Thesis, 1986).
1 comment:
For some reason, i thought Afghanistanica is written by a student at IU, but i could be pulling this out of thin air. With any luck, s/he'll see your newest post. i told you, name-dropping your name is useful!
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