Fragments of the Afghan Frontier

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.

Magnus Marsden is a Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. He has spent 15 years conducting research in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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.