Description
Book SynopsisAn innovative examination of knowledge production relating to Afghanistan in the imperial imagination. Focusing on representations of gender, state and tribes, Manchanda argues that the development of pervasive tropes in Western conceptions of Afghanistan have enabled both colonial and contemporary foreign intervention in the region.
Trade Review'Theoretically deft and empirically rich, Imagining Afghanistan is a searing account of how imperial narratives facilitate 'humanitarian' interventions. Manchanda forensically dissects this orientalist imaginary forged from a large corpus of hoary clichés about states, tribes and eternal warriors, and deeply gendered portraiture of brown women in need of rescue from threatening brown men. A brilliant book.' Laleh Khalili, author of Time in the Shadows: Confinement in Counterinsurgencies
'In its secret history of the war in Afghanistan, US military officials confessed that they 'didn't have the foggiest notion' of what they 'were undertaking'. Nivi Manchanda's Imagining Afghanistan explains why not, in painstaking and painful detail.' Robert Vitalis, author of The Myths of Scarcity and Security That Haunt US Energy Policy
'Imagining Afghanistan is an important work that clearly demonstrates how terminology shapes perceptions, and also how the depiction of a country, people, and even a situation can change with the political and social vicissitudes of the day … Highly recommended.' T. M. May, Choice
'… it allows us to look at the historical, political, and social processes around Afghanistan from a new perspective ...' Georgi Asatryan, Pacific Affairs
Table of ContentsIntroduction; 1. The construction of Afghanistan as a discursive regime; 2. A space contested or the 'state' of Afghanistan; 3. The emergency episteme of the 'tribe' in Afghanistan; 4. Framed: portrayals of Afghan women in the popular imaginary; 5. Subversive identities: Afghan masculinities as societal threat; Coda.
