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In A Mountain Oasis, Susan York presents a richly illustrated socio-economic study of village life in Pakistan’s Yasin Valley, undertaken during one year spent living with a local family. It documents this dynamic agro-pastoral society at a time when few researchers were recording developments in these far-flung and difficult to reach mountain oases of the Hindukush. It is a record of a time when development interventions were in their beginnings, and before this area in Gilgit-Baltistan entered a crucial period of transformation. It provides solid comparative reference material for future research on this region, which is continuing to undergo challenging and complex changes.
On August 3, 2014, the Sinjar region of Northern Iraq was attacked by the “Islamic State”. Killing and abducting thousands, the jihadists also destroyed many of the religious minority’s shrines. Others, however, were defended by local fighters and groups affiliated with the PKK. In the aftermath of the genocide, stories of divine intervention into the defence bolstered land claims of serveral Kurdish political groups. Through extensive fieldwork in the region, I trace imaginaries of Sinjar as a landscape of resistance and a communal history of continuous persecution to current political disputes and attempts to construct a unified Yezidi identity.
This unique collection of essays by leading international scholars gives a profound introduction into the great diversity and richness of facets forming the study of one of earth’s most exciting areas, the Iranian and Caucasian lands. Each of the 37 contributions sheds light on a very special topic, the range of which comprises historical, cultural, ethnographical, religious, political and last but not least literary and linguistic issues, beginning from the late antiquity up to current times. Especially during the last decennia these two regions gained greater interest worldwide due to several developments in politics and culture. This fact grants the book, intended as a festschrift for P...
In Pamirian Crossroads and Beyond Hermann Kreutzmann offers insights in his fieldwork-based research in High Asia during four decades. A human-geographical perspective is pursued in which case studies about colonial and post-colonial boundary-making, exchange relations of mountain communities across international borders, the transformation of agricultural and pastoral practices and the effects of modernisation strategies in neighbouring countries are centred in the Hindukush, Wakhan Quadrangle, Pamirian Crossroads, Karakoram Mountains and Himalaya. Empirical evidence is augmented by in-depth archival research, thus allowing a perspective from the 19th to the 21st century. By shifting the focus to mountain peripheries and emphasising spaces in between urban centres of power in Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, and the Central Asian Republics different arenas of confrontation and effective changes emerge.
This book studies the art forms and social practices that make up much of the daily life of jihadi culture.
The Familial Occult addresses the presence of occult experiences in some scholars' families and how that has affected their epistemological and ontological worlds, as well as their identities as scholars. Those with backgrounds in the familial occult often experience a series of conflicting relationships and different ways of interacting with binaries such as the subjective and objective, a powerful conceptual couple still governing academic thinking. While much has been written on encountering the occult in fieldwork or becoming an apprentice in an occult practice, little yet has been published in the academic literature about growing up with the occult.
This book presents the English translation of a travelogue by an Armenian intellectual of the end of the 19th century. Originally written in a variety of non-normative Western Armenian, it serves as a valuable repository of highly important and unique data on the ethno-demography of the historical region of Dersim, the traditional habitat of Armenians and the Zaza people. The account vividly portrays the urban and rural settlements, their precise topography, and the enchanting landscape of mountains and rivers, which hold a significant place in the folk imagination and sacral world of the highland dwellers.
Cover -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Preface -- 1 Sacrifice -- 2 Honor -- 3 Martyrdom -- 4 Virtue and Vice -- 5 Fedayeen -- 6 Suicide Bombing -- 7 Selfies -- 8 The Widening Gyre -- Afghan Chronology (1964-2015) -- Notes -- Glossary -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- W -- Z -- References -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z
This book presents an empirical examination of consent-seeking among Pashtun Muslims in the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), to determine whether cultural norms and beliefs have largely come to diverge from the principles of consent in Islamic law and jurisprudence. Is culture part of the ‘inevitable decay’ to which Max Müller says every religion is exposed? Or – if rephrased in terms of the research encapsulated within this book – are cultural beliefs and practises the inevitable decay to which Islam has been exposed in Muslim societies? Drawing on interviews with Muslims in Pakistan and Australia, the research broadly broaches questions around the rights of women in...
Christian communities flourished during late antiquity in a Zoroastrian political system, known as the Iranian Empire, that integrated culturally and geographically disparate territories from Arabia to Afghanistan into its institutions and networks. Whereas previous studies have regarded Christians as marginal, insular, and often persecuted participants in this empire, Richard Payne demonstrates their integration into elite networks, adoption of Iranian political practices and imaginaries, and participation in imperial institutions. ÊThe rise of Christianity in Iran depended on the Zoroastrian theory and practice of hierarchical, differentiated inclusion, according to which Christians, Jews...