Taleban – ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY

Book Review: Afghanistan Post–2014—Misreading Afghanistan’s Crypto-coloniality

Review of: Afghanistan Post-2014: Power Configurations and Evolving Tragectories. Edited by Rajen Harshe’ and Dhananjay Tripathi. (New Delhi: Routledge), 2016, pp. xix+248. The colonial and postcolonial writings about of Afghanistan are marked by the absence of a systematic and critical awareness about the country as an offspring and dependency of Western colonialism. The ethnographic, historic […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

In Afghanistan: Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?

Come On, Show Me that Smile! One has to wonder if NATO military planners and officers in the field are just slightly insane with frustration, or simply have a perverse sense of humour. In this BBC story, British troops armed to the teeth enter a compound in darkness en masse, scaring the little children, and […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM): Commemorating Columbus Day 2010

Readers will appreciate that a tremendous amount of historical research, and interviews with participants, went into this project to present the true history of the voyages of Christopher Columbus to Afghanistan, a history that thus far has been replete with misconceptions, unsubstantiated rumour, and popular myths. Clearly, Columbus and his brothers are to be celebrated […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Encircling Empire: Report #5, 01-08 October 2010

EE: Report #5, 01—08 October 2010 Encircling Empire Reports is a selection of essays, blog posts, and news reports covering a given time period. They are intended to be useful for those interested in: ● contemporary and critical political anthropology ● public anthropology ● imperialism and imperial decline ● militarism/militarization ● the political economy of […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Are You Afraid of the Digital Taleban?

In the latest in militainment news, Electronic Arts has bowed to pressure from military officials in the U.S. and UK–not that it wasn’t already predisposed to their sentiments–and to the overreaching complaints of family members of those who died killing Afghans, and removed mention of the Taleban from the upcoming release of “Medal of Honor.” […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Encircling Empire: Report #2, 11-18 September 2010

EE: Report #2, 11—18 September 2010 Encircling Empire Reports is a selection of essays, blog posts, and news reports covering a given time period, which can usually be glimpsed in raw form at zero.collected. They are intended to be useful for those interested in: ● contemporary and critical political anthropology ● public anthropology ● imperialism […]

by M. Jamil Hanifi

Is TIME’s Afghan “cover girl” really a victim of mutilation by the Taleban?

TIME: What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan (story) BOING BOING: What Still Happened Despite 10 Years of Occupying Afghanistan (story) ZERO ANTHRO: What Happens When We Don’t Fix Problems at Home (story) The August 9th TIME magazine cover story is about a young Afghan woman whose nose and ears have been allegedly “mutilated” by the Taleban. […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Visual Intelligence: IED Attacks from Wikileaks’ Afghan War Diary

This is probably my favourite YouTube video for the year–an astonishing application of the raw data from the Afghanistan war logs released by Wikileaks. It is deceptively simple, but as an amateur video editor I can only begin to imagine the formidable knowledge and skills required to animate this data, and to send a message […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Wikileaks’ Afghan War Diary: Problems to Note, More to Come on Human Terrain Teams

First, in the interest of full disclosure, I am a financial donor to Wikileaks, and another member of this team, John Stanton, has released his own publications to Cryptome, whose founder was also a co-founder of Wikileaks. This is a very big moment in time, endlessly fascinating from any number of angles, and sure to leave a […]

by M. Jamil Hanifi

Causes and Consequences of the Destabilization of Afghanistan

Over the last 30 years, the polity of Afghanistan has undergone several overlapping transformations. The structure of power at the center has collapsed, causing the center-periphery relationship to evaporate. The movement of economic and human resources from various regions of Afghanistan to locations across international borders, especially in Iran and Pakistan, has intensified. Ethnic, sectarian, […]

by M. Jamil Hanifi

Taleban–Not Taliban

In Western discourse, the neo-fundamentalist Taleban movement and the noun from which it is derived are awkwardly, often incorrectly, represented. In Paxtu (Pakhtu, Pashto, Pushtu, etc.) the movement is rendered da talebano ghorzang, and in Dari (Afghan Farsi), jonbesh-e taleban. In Paxtu and Dari usage, the noun taleb (student, seeker of knowledge) is gendered, and […]

by M. Jamil Hanifi

Afghanistan and the Emergence of the Taliban: Reviewed Works

A previous article on this site quoted sections of Ahmed Rashid’s TALIBAN: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), a partial copy of which is available here. The following is a review by M. Jamil Hanifi published in The Middle East Journal, with details of the history of […]