Afghanistan Under Siege: The Afghan Body and the Postcolonial Border

Description

In this book, based on field work undertaken in Afghanistan itself and through engagement with postcolonial theory, Bojan Savic critiques western intervention in Afghanistan by showing how its casting of Afghan natives as “dangerous” has created a power network which fractures the country – in echoes of 19th and 20th century colonial powers in the region. Savic also offers an analysis of how and by what means global security priorities have affected Afghan lives. Cover Half Title Title Copyrights Content List of abbreviations Acknowledgements Part I Questions, Who Is Addressing Them and How 1 Introduction: The Abnormal of the Afghan War on Terror The Troublesome Herati Subject Herat at the Limit: Between the Postcolonial Frontier and Security Unbound Herat at the Limit: Between Afghanistan and Iran, Pashtunistan and Persia, Sunnis and Shias Herat at the Limit: Between Peace and Resistance on the Frontier Global Stability in Herat Critiques of Security in Afghanistan and Herat Herati Encounters of Class, Race and Geography: Seeing Like the Subject The Roadmap Part II Why Does Postcolonial Security Care about Herat? 2 Mapping Out Tools of Critique: A Conceptual Framework Introduction: Governing the Ungovernable Strategies of Power Strategies of Sovereign, Disciplinary and Governmental Power The Body and Power: The Many Axes of Afghan Vulnerabilities Conduits of Power: Security Apparatuses and Uncertainty Postcolonial Power and the Afghan Body Government through Experimentation Nonviolent Everyday Resistance: Power as Power Struggle Conclusion 3 Spaces and Forces of Pacifi cation and Containment Introduction Brown Bodies and Lands: Violent, Dirty, Fantastic and Risky Representations of Afghanistan: Background and Proximate, from Instability to Filth Background and Proximate: Imaginations of Herat as Decline and Risk The Global Defining Itself as Imperilled Who Is At Risk and What Must Be Defended? Afghans in Global Security: The Necessary Threat Heratis at Risk Whose Risk Matters? Three Sets of Apparatuses: Governing through Spatial Enmeshments Security Apparatuses and Experimentality The Rationality of Government through Experimentation Conclusion: Herati Hearts and Minds Part III Power over Heratis and Resistances to It: Three Case Studies 4 How Pacified Heratis ‘Milk the Cow’: Nonviolent Resistances to Global Security Introduction Herat at the Limit of Power and Resistance Ambivalence in Herat Ambivalent Employment as Counter-exploitation of Security Governance Ambivalent Resistances through Knowledge and Skills Conclusion 5 Banished by Culture, Violated in Its Midst: Managing Musalla’s Homeless between Minarets, Development and Security Introduction The ‘Otherness’ of the Homeless and the Study of It ‘What is Splendour?’ Culture as Population Management ‘Police’ in the Study of Afghan Law Enforcement’s Management of Musalla The Cultural Apparatus and the Cultivation of Splendour Musalla and ‘Its’ Homeless: Visible Neglect How Do Visible Misery and Violence, and Invisible Pain Work? Three Questions Patterns of Representation of Musalla’s Homeless and the Conditions of Their Pain ‘Better Not Talk to Them’: Pathologizing Musalla’s Homeless Becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site: Herat’s Cultural Apparatus and its Noble Cause Conclusion 6 Experiencing Self as the Periphery: Heratis at the Iranian-Afghan Border Introduction Afghans in(to) Iran Conceptual Reflections The Periphery in the ‘World as a System’ The Body as a Peripheral Space: Experiencing Self as the Periphery The Periphery and the Frontier at Islam Qala Islam Qala: Thinking and Encountering the Periphery at the Border Being a Child, Being Afghan, Being a Woman at Islam Qala International Agencies and Their Spatial Effects on the Normalization of Islam Qala Islam Qala’s Fluctuating and Inflated Spatiality The Exceptionality of Commerce. Commerce as a Window into Border Surveillance The Fragmentation and Inflation of a ‘Fine’ Violent Border Manoeuvring the Periphery by Evading, Co-opting and Counter-Surveilling the Border Conclusion Part IV Conclusion 7 On Postcolonial Power Equilibria References Index