The Afghan-Central Asia Borderland

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317430956
Total Pages : 196 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (174 download)

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Book Synopsis The Afghan-Central Asia Borderland by : Suzanne Levi-Sanchez

Download or read book The Afghan-Central Asia Borderland written by Suzanne Levi-Sanchez and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-15 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on extensive, long-term fieldwork in the borderlands of Afghan and Tajik Badakhshan, this book explores the importance of local leaders and local identity groups for the stability of a state’s borders, and ultimately for the stability of the state itself. It shows how the implantation of formal institutional structures at the border, a process supported by United Nations and other international bodies, can be counterproductive in that it may marginalise local leaders and alienate the local population, thereby increasing overall instability. The study considers how, in this particular borderland where trafficking of illegal drugs, weapons and people is rampant, corrupt customs and border personnel, and imperfect new institutional arrangements, contributed to a complex mix of oppression, hidden protest and subtle resistance, which benefitted illicit traders and hindered much needed humanitarian work. The book relates developments in this region to borderlands elsewhere, especially new borders in the former Soviet bloc, and argues that local leaders and organisations should be given semi-autonomy in co-ordination with state border forces in order to increase stability and the acceptance of the state.

The Afghan-Central Asia Borderland

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317430948
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (174 download)

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Book Synopsis The Afghan-Central Asia Borderland by : Suzanne Levi-Sanchez

Download or read book The Afghan-Central Asia Borderland written by Suzanne Levi-Sanchez and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-15 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on extensive, long-term fieldwork in the borderlands of Afghan and Tajik Badakhshan, this book explores the importance of local leaders and local identity groups for the stability of a state’s borders, and ultimately for the stability of the state itself. It shows how the implantation of formal institutional structures at the border, a process supported by United Nations and other international bodies, can be counterproductive in that it may marginalise local leaders and alienate the local population, thereby increasing overall instability. The study considers how, in this particular borderland where trafficking of illegal drugs, weapons and people is rampant, corrupt customs and border personnel, and imperfect new institutional arrangements, contributed to a complex mix of oppression, hidden protest and subtle resistance, which benefitted illicit traders and hindered much needed humanitarian work. The book relates developments in this region to borderlands elsewhere, especially new borders in the former Soviet bloc, and argues that local leaders and organisations should be given semi-autonomy in co-ordination with state border forces in order to increase stability and the acceptance of the state.

The Defiant Border

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Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1107126029
Total Pages : 279 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (71 download)

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Book Synopsis The Defiant Border by : Elisabeth Leake

Download or read book The Defiant Border written by Elisabeth Leake and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores why the Afghan-Pakistan borderlands have remained largely independent of state controls throughout the twentieth century.

Xinjiang

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317451376
Total Pages : 507 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (174 download)

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Book Synopsis Xinjiang by : S. Frederick Starr

Download or read book Xinjiang written by S. Frederick Starr and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-03-04 with total page 507 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eastern Turkestan, now known as Xinjiang or the New Territory, makes up a sixth of China's land mass. Absorbed by the Qing in the 1880s and reconquered by Mao in 1949, this Turkic-Muslim region of China's remote northwest borders on formerly Soviet Central Asia, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Mongolia, and Tibet, Will Xinjiang participate in twenty-first century ascendancy, or will nascent Islamic radicalism in Xinjiang expand the orbit of instability in a dangerous part of the world? This comprehensive survey of contemporary Xinjiang is the result of a major collaborative research project begun in 1998. The authors have combined their fieldwork experience, linguistic skills, and disciplinary expertise to assemble the first multifaceted introduction to Xinjiang. The volume surveys the region's geography; its history of military and political subjugation to China; economic, social, and commercial conditions; demography, public health, and ecology; and patterns of adaption, resistance, opposition, and evolving identities.

Incomplete State-Building in Central Asia

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Author :
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3031141822
Total Pages : 350 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (311 download)

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Book Synopsis Incomplete State-Building in Central Asia by : Viktoria Akchurina

Download or read book Incomplete State-Building in Central Asia written by Viktoria Akchurina and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-10-19 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about transformation of the state and an incomplete state-building. It defies the transitology assumption of continuity, linearity and dichotomy of formal and informal in the transformation of the state. Contrary to the conventional approaches, it claims that any social order or its political scaffolding, the state, is always incomplete and we need to develop cognitive maps to better understand that incompleteness. It reflects on the social practices, processes and patterns that evolve as a non-linear result of three sets of factors: those that are historical, external, and elite-driven. Three Central Asian states - Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan - are examined here comparatively as case studies, as Central Asia represents an interesting terrain to challenge conventional understanding of the state. Specifically, the book captures a paradox at hand: how come three states, which made different political, economic, cultural, and social choices at the outset of their independence in the 1990s, have ended up as so-called “weak states” in the 2000s and onwards? This puzzle can be better understood through looking at the relationship among three main sets of factors that shape state-building processes, such as history, external actors, and local elites. This book applies an interdisciplinary approach, combining political anthropology, political economy, sociology, and political science. It helps conceptualize and understand social and political order beyond the “failed state” paradigm

Informal Markets and Trade in Central Asia and the Caucasus

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000594025
Total Pages : 195 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis Informal Markets and Trade in Central Asia and the Caucasus by : Susanne Fehlings

Download or read book Informal Markets and Trade in Central Asia and the Caucasus written by Susanne Fehlings and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-04-11 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited book introduces new research on informal markets and trade in Central Asia and the Caucasus. The research presented in this volume is based on recent field research in Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as Beijing, Guangzhou, Yiwu and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China. The nine chapters in this book illustrate how informal markets and trade in Central Asia and the Caucasus have provided space for millions of people across the region to negotiate changes in state and society in the three decades since the breakup of the Soviet Union and the emergence of successor states. Collectively, the book suggests that informality should be seen as a normative order for polities in Central Asia and the Caucasus for three reasons: (1) The inability – or unwillingness – of the states to measure commercial transactions. (2) The highly personalized nature of small business operations that rest on networking and social relations, oral agreements and trust. (3) Markets and bazaars being embedded within states in which clientelism frequently thrives. This book is a significant new contribution to the study of trade and informal markets in Central Asia and the Caucasus, and will be a great resource for academics, researchers and advanced students of Sociology, History, Politics, Business, Economics, Social Anthropology and Geography. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal, Central Asian Survey.

Parliamentary Representation in Central Asia

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000095444
Total Pages : 195 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Parliamentary Representation in Central Asia by : Esther Somfalvy

Download or read book Parliamentary Representation in Central Asia written by Esther Somfalvy and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-06-09 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the nature of parliamentary representation within the autocratic regimes of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. It argues that although many parliaments are elected under flawed or non-competitive elections, autocratic governments are nevertheless aware of the need to appear representative and accessible to the demands of citizens and that even limited parliaments manage to represent their voters, sometimes in ways not intended by the regime. The book examines how elites structure, manage and organize representation; how they foster the desired kind of representation; and how they limit the ways in which parliaments fulfil their representative functions. The book concludes that Kazakhstan is a more hegemonic form of autocracy and the Kyrgyz Republic a more competitive form and that the degree to which parliaments fulfil their representational functions and how much room for manoeuvre individual MPs have depends largely on how much parties control candidate selection and the daily schedule and administrative resources of parliaments.

Practices of Traditionalization in Central Asia

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000045366
Total Pages : 151 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Practices of Traditionalization in Central Asia by : Judith Beyer

Download or read book Practices of Traditionalization in Central Asia written by Judith Beyer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-05-21 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Practices of Traditionalization in Central Asia focuses on how tradition is ‘everyday-ified’ in contemporary Central Asia, including Tatarstan and Tibet, and what people seek to achieve in its name. The case studies range from political demonstrations and industrial workers’ gatherings to institutions of religious education, minority communities, weddings, and the Internet. In this volume we regard tradition as a practice that needs to be explored in its institutional and interactional context at a particular time, rather than as a reliable guide to the past: tradition can only be judged from the present; it is an interpretative concept, not a descriptive one. While the scholarly debate has so far centered on what tradition entails and what it does not, including the question of invention and ownership, less attention has been devoted to investigating how tradition is enacted, enforced, or motivated – in short, how it ‘gets done.’ In Central Asia, practices of traditionalization are closely related to the transformation of the socialist order and the emergence of highly stratified societies. This volume asks: When does tradition emerge as a line of argumentation, who are the actors invoking it and how is it being (materially) manifested? Practices of Traditionalization in Central Asia will be of great interest to scholars of Central Asia, Anthropology, History, Political Science, and Sociology. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of Central Asian Survey.

Identity, History and Trans-Nationality in Central Asia

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351124242
Total Pages : 477 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (511 download)

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Book Synopsis Identity, History and Trans-Nationality in Central Asia by : Dagikhudo Dagiev

Download or read book Identity, History and Trans-Nationality in Central Asia written by Dagikhudo Dagiev and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-09-28 with total page 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pamiris, or Badakhshanis in popular discourse, form a small group of Iranic peoples who inhabit the mountainous region of Pamir-Hindu Kush, being the historical region of Badakhshan. Pamiri communities are located in the territories of four current nation-states: Tajikistan, Afghanistan, China and Pakistan. This book provides insights in the identity process of a group of mountain communities whose vigorous cultures, languages and complex political history have continued to shape a strategic part of the world. Its various chapters capture what being a Pamiri may entail and critically explore the impact of both trans-regionalism and the globalisation processes on activating, engaging and linking the dispersed communities. The book presents a variety of lines of argument pertaining to Pamiri identity and identification processes. Structured in three parts, the book first addresses themes relevant to the region’s geography and the recent history of Pamiri communities. The second section critically explores the rich philosophical, religious and cultural Pamiri heritage through the writings of prominent historical figures. The final section addresses issues pertaining to the contemporary diffusion of traditions, peace-building, interconnectivity and what it means to be a Pamiri for the youth of the region. Contributions by experts in their field offer fresh insights into the Ismaili communities in the region while successfully updating the historical and ethnographic legacy of Soviet times with present-day scholarship. As the first collection of scholarly contributions in English entirely focusing on the Pamiri people, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of the history, anthropology, religious studies, sociology, linguistics, education and geography of Central Asia and/or East Asia as well as of Islam, Islamic thought, minority-majority relations, population movements and the processes of defining and affirming identity among minority groups.

Critical Approaches to Security in Central Asia

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0429656904
Total Pages : 310 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (296 download)

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Book Synopsis Critical Approaches to Security in Central Asia by : Edward Lemon

Download or read book Critical Approaches to Security in Central Asia written by Edward Lemon and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-05-21 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Central Asia remains on the periphery, both spatially and in people’s imaginations. When the region does attract international attention, it is often related to security issues, including terrorism, ethnic conflict and drug trafficking. This book brings together leading specialists from a range of disciplines including geography, anthropology, sociology and political science to discuss how citizens and governments within Central Asia think about and practise security. The authors explore how governments use fears of instability to bolster their rule, and how securitized populations cope with (and resist) being labelled threats through strategies that are rarely associated with security, including marriage and changing their appearance. This collection examines a wide range of security issues including Islamic extremism, small arms, interethnic relations and border regions. While coverage of the region often departs from preconceived notions of the region as dangerous, obscure and volatile, the chapters in this book all place emphasis on the way local people understand security and harmony in their daily lives. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of Central Asian Studies as well as Security Studies and Political Science. The chapters were originally published in the journal Central Asian Survey.

Modern Central Asia

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Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1793612188
Total Pages : 379 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (936 download)

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Book Synopsis Modern Central Asia by : Yuriy Malikov

Download or read book Modern Central Asia written by Yuriy Malikov and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-12-04 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern Central Asia: A Primary Source Reader is an academic resource that discusses the basic political, social, and economic evolution of Central Asian civilization in its colonial (1731–1991) and post-colonial (1991–present) periods. Among other aspects of Central Asian history, this source reader discusses resistance and accommodation of native societies to the policies of the imperial center, the transformation of Central Asian societies under Tsarist and Soviet rule, and the history of Islam in Central Asia and its role in nation and state-building processes. This primary source book will be instrumental for familiarizing students with the nationality policies of imperial Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet governments as well as the effects produced by these policies on the natives of the region. The documents collected in this reader challenge the traditional approach, which has viewed Central Asians as passive recipients of the policies imposed on them by central authorities. Modern Central Asia: A Primary Source Reader demonstrates the active participation of the indigenous peoples in contact with other peoples by examining the natives’ ways of organizing societies, their pre-colonial experience of contact with outsiders, and the structure of their subsistence systems. The source book will also help students situate the major events and activities of Central Asia in a global context. In addition to the value of this collection to the Central Asian historical record, many of the included texts will be essential for comparative analyses and cross-disciplinary approaches in the study of world history.

Legal Pluralism in Central Asia

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351375482
Total Pages : 417 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (513 download)

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Book Synopsis Legal Pluralism in Central Asia by : Mahabat Sadyrbek

Download or read book Legal Pluralism in Central Asia written by Mahabat Sadyrbek and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-12-22 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Legal Pluralism in Central Asia reports on historical, anthropological and legal research which examines customary legal practices in Kyrgyzstan and relates them to wider societal developments in Central Asia and further afield. Using the term legal pluralism, the book demonstrates that there is a spectrum of approaches, available avenues, forms of local law and indigenous popular justice in Kyrgyzstan’s predominantly rural communities, which can be labelled living law. Based on her extensive original research, Mahabat Sadyrbek shows how contemporary peoples systematically address challenging problems, such as disputes, violence, accidents, crime and other difficulties, and thereby seek justice, redress, punishment, compensation, readjustment of relations or closure. She demonstrates that local law, expressed through ritually structured communicative exchange, through dictums and proverbs with binding characters and different legal practices or processes undertaken in specific ways, deem the solutions appropriate and acceptable. The reader is thereby enabled to see the law in people’s deepest assumptions and beliefs, in codes of shame and honour, in local mores and ethics as well as in religious terms. In this way, the book reveals the dynamic, changing and living character of law in a specific context and in a region hitherto insufficiently researched within legal anthropology.

Infrastructure and the Remaking of Asia

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Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 0824894375
Total Pages : 265 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (248 download)

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Book Synopsis Infrastructure and the Remaking of Asia by : Max Hirsh

Download or read book Infrastructure and the Remaking of Asia written by Max Hirsh and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2022-10-31 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the twenty-first century, infrastructure has undergone a seismic shift from West to East. Once concentrated in Europe and North America, global infrastructure production today is focused squarely on Asia. Infrastructure and the Remaking of Asia investigates the deeper implications of that pivot to the East. Written by leading international infrastructure experts, it demonstrates how new roads, airports, pipelines, and cables are changing Asian economies, societies, and geopolitics—from the Bosporus to Beijing, and from Indonesia to the Arctic. Ten tightly interwoven case studies powerfully illustrate infrastructure’s leading role in three global paradigm shifts: climate change, digitalization, and China’s emergence as a superpower. Combining social science methods with mapping techniques from the design professions, Infrastructure and the Remaking of Asia establishes a dialogue between academic research on infrastructure and the professional insights of those responsible for infrastructure’s planning, production, and operation. By applying that mixed method to transport, energy, telecommunication, and resource extraction projects across Asia, the book synthesizes research on infrastructure from six academic fields, while making those insights accessible to a wider audience of students, professionals, and the general public. For links to the open-access PDF and EPUB editions, chapter downloads, and detailed information, visit the project website: https://infrastructureasia.net/.

Asian Borderlands

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Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674021716
Total Pages : 340 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (217 download)

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Book Synopsis Asian Borderlands by : Charles Patterson Giersch

Download or read book Asian Borderlands written by Charles Patterson Giersch and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With comparative frontier history and pioneering use of indigenous sources, Giersch provides a groundbreaking challenge to the China-centered narrative of the Qing conquest. He focuses on the Tai domains of the Yunnan frontier on the politically fluid borderlands, where local, indigenous leaders were crucial actors in an arena of imperial rivalry.

Kyrgyzstan - Regime Security and Foreign Policy

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Author :
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1315533480
Total Pages : 185 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (155 download)

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Book Synopsis Kyrgyzstan - Regime Security and Foreign Policy by : Kemel Toktomushev

Download or read book Kyrgyzstan - Regime Security and Foreign Policy written by Kemel Toktomushev and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kyrgyzstan is an interesting example of a relatively weak state, which for its brief period of independence has already ousted two presidents, experienced two revolutions, survived two interethnic conflicts and yet remained intact. This book explores this apparent paradox and argues that the schism between domestic and international dimensions of state and regime security is key to understanding the nature of Kyrgyz politics. The book shows how the foreign policy links to the Manas Air Base, used by the US military and essential for supplying their forces in Afghanistan, the economic arrangements necessary for sustaining the base, both inside and outside Kyrgyzstan, and the myriad of different actors involved in all this, combined to overshadow points of friction to ensure stable continuance of the status quo. Overall, the book shows how broad geopolitical forces and complex local factors together have a huge impact on the formation of Kyrgyz foreign policy.

Methods, Moments, and Ethnographic Spaces in Asia

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Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1786612496
Total Pages : 315 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (866 download)

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Book Synopsis Methods, Moments, and Ethnographic Spaces in Asia by : Nayantara S. Appleton

Download or read book Methods, Moments, and Ethnographic Spaces in Asia written by Nayantara S. Appleton and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-04-15 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Asia is changing. Socio-political shifts in the world economy, technological advances of monumental scales, movements of people and ideas, alongside ongoing post-colonization projects across the region have created an emerging Asia – one confident and assertive of its place in the contemporary geopolitical sphere. As political and economic powers reassert Asian sovereignty in opposition to perceived Northern dominance, and dramatic and rapid development in the region shift the relationship between the centre and the periphery, new renderings and imaginations of hierarchies of identity and power come to the fore. This changing environment leads to emerging challenges for anthropologists working in the region: both those who have been working there for years, and new scholars entering the field. This volume considers these changes, and the implications of this on our practice. By focusing on Asia as a site of enquiry, the contributors to this book discuss tensions and opportunities arising in their ethnographic fieldwork in light of a changing Asia. Drawing on personal reflections on Asia’s global positioning in this contemporary moment, the contributors consider how fieldwork is being negotiated within the changing dynamics of anthropology in the region. This book then, is a discussion on the shifting landscape of field sites and the resultant emerging research methodologies, and is aimed at those who are already deeply immersed in fieldwork as well as those who are seeking ways to undertake it.

Azan on the Moon

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Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN 13 : 0822982404
Total Pages : 285 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (229 download)

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Book Synopsis Azan on the Moon by : Till Mostowlansky

Download or read book Azan on the Moon written by Till Mostowlansky and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2017-05-04 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Azan on the Moon is an in-depth anthropological study of people's lives along the Pamir Highway in eastern Tajikistan. Constructed in the 1930s in rugged high-altitude terrain, the road fundamentally altered the material and social fabric of this former Soviet outpost on the border with Afghanistan and China. The highway initially brought sentiments of disconnection and hardship, followed by Soviet modernization and development, and ultimately a sense of distinction from bordering countries and urban centers that continues to this day. Based on extensive fieldwork and through an analysis of construction, mobility, technology, media, development, Islam, and the state, Till Mostowlansky shows how ideas of modernity are both challenged and reinforced in contemporary Tajikistan. In the wake of China's rise in Central Asia, people along the Pamir Highway strive to reconcile a modern future with a modern past. Weaving together the road, a population, and a region, Azan on the Moon presents a rich ethnography of global connections