Fragments of the Afghan Frontier

Marsden Magnus, Hopkins Benjamin D.

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Despite the long and intimate history of engagement along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan's North-West, this area and its relationship to the world remains poorly understood in the West's popular imagination. Through the construction of a collage of historical narratives and intense ethnographic encounters, Marsden and Hopkins argue that the simplistic stereotypes and tropes that all too often masquerade as knowledge about the Frontier not only conceal a more complex reality, but are also a source of the problems that local and international actors alike face there. Not some simple isolated depot of radical terrorists or instrumental tribesmen, the Frontier is a space of richly textured meaning, constructed through a history of movement of its inhabitants and their understanding of the world beyond. "Fragments of the Afghan Frontier" offers a corrective to simplistic understanding both of the region's history and its current realities, leaving the reader with a deeper understanding of the ever-evolving complexity of this globally significant region.

About the Author

Magnus Marsden is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Sussex. He has spent fifteen years conducting research in both Afghanistan and Pakistan and, with Benjamin Hopkins, is the author of "Fragments of the Afghan Frontier" and editor of "Beyond Swat: History, Society and Economy Along the Afghanistan-Pakistan Frontier".

Benjamin D. Hopkins is an Assistant Professor in History and International Affairs at the George Washington University, Washington DC and a Research Fellow at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

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