Trading Worlds: Afghan Merchants Across Modern Frontiers
Magnus Marsden
Abstract
Trading Worlds is an anthropological study of Afghan merchants in Afghanistan, Central Asia and Eastern Europe. The book argues that the merchants collectively form a little understood yet rapidly expanding global trading network. It contests one-sided images that depict traders from this and other conflict regions as immoral profiteers, the cronies of warlords or international drug smugglers. It shows, rather, the active role these merchants are playing in processes referred to by anthropologists as “globalisation from below”. Afghan merchants, the author demonstrates, forge and occupy critic ... More
Trading Worlds is an anthropological study of Afghan merchants in Afghanistan, Central Asia and Eastern Europe. The book argues that the merchants collectively form a little understood yet rapidly expanding global trading network. It contests one-sided images that depict traders from this and other conflict regions as immoral profiteers, the cronies of warlords or international drug smugglers. It shows, rather, the active role these merchants are playing in processes referred to by anthropologists as “globalisation from below”. Afghan merchants, the author demonstrates, forge and occupy critical economic niches, both at home and abroad: from the Persian Gulf to Central Asia, to the ports of the Black Sea; and in global cities such as Istanbul, Moscow and London, the traders’ activities are shaping the material and cultural lives of the diverse populations among whom they live. Through an exploration of the life histories, trading activities and everyday experiences of these mobile merchants, the book shows that traders’ worlds are informed by complex forms of knowledge, skill, ethical sensibility, and long-lasting human relationships that often cut across and dissolve boundaries of nation, ethnicity, religion and ideology.
Keywords:
Afghanistan,
Trade,
Asia,
Eurasia,
Globalisation,
Economic anthropology,
Migration,
Trading diasporas/networks,
Business,
Post-Soviet world
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2016 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780190247980 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2016 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190247980.001.0001 |
