Suggested Readings on Afghanistan, Kashmir, Nepal, and Sri Lanka

From the Series: The Politics of “Postconflict”: On the Ground in South Asia

Photo by Sara Shneiderman.

Afghanistan

Biehl, João, and Ramah McKay. 2012. “Ethnography as Political Critique.” Anthropological Quarterly 85, no. 4: 1209–1227.

Coburn, Noah. 2011. Bazaar Politics: Power and Pottery in an Afghan Market Town. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.

_____, and Anna Larson. 2013. “Justifying the Means: Afghan Perceptions of the Electoral Process.” Special Report, no. 326. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace.

Coll, Steve. 2004. Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. New York: Penguin.

Daulatzai, Anila. 2006. “Acknowledging Afghanistan: Notes and Queries on an Occupation.” Cultural Dynamics 18, no. 3: 293–311.

Devji, Faisal. 2008. The Terrorist in Search of Humanity: Militant Islam and Global Politics. New York: Columbia University Press.

Fischstein, Paul. 2010. “Winning Hearts and Minds: The Relationship between Aid and Security in Afghanistan's Balkh Province.” Medford, Mass.: Feinstein International Center, Tufts University.

Larson, Anna. 2009. “Toward an Afghan Democracy?: Exploring Perceptions of Democratisation in Afghanistan.” Discussion paper. Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit.

Menon, Meena. 2014. “Humanitarianism Is as Culpable as War.” The Hindu, January 10.

Monsutti, Alessandro. 2013. “Anthropologizing Afghanistan: Colonial and Postcolonial Encounters.” Annual Review of Anthropology 42: 269–85.

Suhrke, Astri. 2013. “Statebuilding in Afghanistan: A Contradictory Engagement.” Central Asian Survey 32, no. 3: 271–86.

Waldman, Matt. 2008. “Falling Short: Aid Effectiveness in Afghanistan.” Research report. Kabul: ACBAR.

Afghanistan Websites

Costs of War Project

Kashmir

Ahmed, Firdaus. 2009. “Kargil: Ten Years On.” New Delhi: Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies.

Ali, Tariq, Hilal Bhatt, Angana P. Chatterji, Habbah Khatun, Pankaj Mishra, and Arundhati Roy, eds. 2011. Kashmir: The Case for Freedom. New York: Verso.

Bhan, Mona. Counterinsurgency, Democracy, and the Politics of Identity in India: From Warfare to Welfare? New York: Routledge, 2013.

Duschinski, Haley. 2009. “Destiny Effects: Militarization, State Power, and Punitive Containment in Kashmir Valley.” Anthropological Quarterly 82, no. 3: 691–717.

International Crisis Group. 2010. “Steps towards Peace: Putting Kashmiris First.” Asia Briefing, no. 106. New York: International Crisis Group.

Junaid, Mohamad. 2013. “Death and Life under Occupation: Space, Violence and Memory in Kashmir.” In Everyday Occupations: Experiencing Militarism in South Asia and the Middle East, edited by Kamela Visweswaran, 158–90. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Kabir, Ananya Jehanara. 2009. Territory of Desire: Representing the Valley of Kashmir. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Kak, Sanjay, ed. 2011. Until My Freedom Has Come: The New Intifada in Kashmir. New York: Penguin.

Kaul, Suvir. 2011. “An’ You Will Fight, till the Death of It . . .’: Past and Present in the Challenge of Kashmir.” Social Research 78, no. 1: 173–202.

Manecksha, Freny. 2014. “Autonomy Under Siege.” Himal, January 7.

Peer, Basharat. 2010. Curfewed Night. New York: Scribner.

Rai, Mridu. 2004. Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects: Islam, Rights, and the History of Kashmir. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Robinson, Cabeiri. 2013. Body of Victim, Body of Warrior: Refugee Families and the Making of Kashmiri Jihadists. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Snedden, Christopher. 2012. The Untold Story of the People of Azad Kashmir. London: Hurst.

Schofield, Victoria. 2003. Kashmir in Conflict: India, Pakistan and the Unfinished War. New York: I. B. Tauris.

Wilder, Andrew. 2010. “Aid and Stability in Pakistan: Lessons from the 2005 Earthquake Response.” Disasters 34, S3: 406–426.

Nepal

Bertelsmann Stiftung. 2014. “Bertelsman Transformation Index, 2014: Nepal Country Report.” Gütersloh, Germany: Bertelsmann Stiftung.

Devkota, Surendra R. 2007. “Socio-Economic Development in Nepal: Past Mistakes and Future Possibilities.” South Asia Economic Journal 8, no. 2: 285–315.

Gellner, David N. 2012. “Fluidity, Hybridity, Performativity: How Relevant are Social-Scientific Buzzwords for Nepal’s Constitution-Building.” In Ethnicity and Federalization in Nepal, edited by Chaitanya Mishra and Om P. Gurung, 91–102. Kathmandu: Tribhuvan University Central Department of Sociology and Anthropology.

Hindman, Heather. 2013. Mediating the Global: Expatria's Forms and Consequences in Kathmandu. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.

Holmberg, David, Judith Pettigrew, and Mukta S. Tamang. 2008. “Views from the Field: Anthropological Perspectives on the Constituent Assembly Elections.” Baha Occasional Papers 2. Kathmandu: Social Science Baha.

International Crisis Group. 2010. “Nepal’s Political Rites of Passage.” Asia Report, no. 194. New York: International Crisis Group.

______. 2012. “Nepal’s Constitution (I): Evolution not Revolution.” Asia Report, no. 233. New York: International Crisis Group.

Kunreuther, Laura. 2009. “Between Love and Property: Voice, Sentiment, and Subjectivity in the Reform of Daughter's Inheritance in Nepal.” American Ethnologist 36, no. 3: 545–62.

Lawoti, Mahendra, and Susan Hangen, eds. 2013. Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Nepal: Identities and Mobilization after 1990. New York: Routledge.

Lecomte-Tilouine, Marie, ed. 2013. Revolution in Nepal. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Leve, Lauren. 2009. “Women’s Empowerment and Rural Revolution: Rethinking ‘Failed Development.’” Dialectical Anthropology 33: 345–63.

Ogura, Kiyoko. 2008. “Seeking State Power: The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist).” Berlin: Berghof Research Centre.

Pettigrew, Judith. 2013. Maoists at the Hearth: Everyday Life in Nepal’s Civil War. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Robins, Simon. 2012. “Transitional Justice as an Elite Discourse: Human Rights Practice Where the Global Meets the Local in Post-Conflict Nepal.” Critical Asian Studies 44, no. 1: 3–30.

Shah, Saubhagya. 2008. “Civil Society in Uncivil Places: Soft State and Regime Change in Nepal.” Washington, DC: East–West Center.

Sharrock, James. 2013. “Stability in Transition: Development Perspectives in Local Politics.” European Bulletin of Himalayan Research 42: 9–38.

Shneiderman, Sara. 2013. “Developing a Culture of Marginality: Nepal’s Current Classificatory Moment.” Focaal, no. 65: 42–55.

Sijapati, Bandita, and Amrita Limbu. 2012. “Governing Labor Migration in Nepal: An Analysis of Existing Policies and Institutional Mechanisms.” Kathmandu: Centre for the Study of Labour and Mobility.

Tamang, Seira, and Carmen Malena. 2011. “The Political Economy of Social Accountability in Nepal.” Kathmandu: World Bank.

Sri Lanka

Abeysekera, Charles, and Newton Gunasinghe, eds. 1987. Facets of Ethnicity in Sri Lanka. Colombo: Social Scientists Association.

Bastian, Sunil. 2007. “The Politics of Foreign Aid in Sri Lanka: Promoting Markets and Supporting Peace.” Colombo: International Centre for Ethnic Studies.

Hoole, Rajan. 2001. Sri Lanka: The Arrogance of Power—Myths, Decadence and Murder. Colombo: University Teachers for Human Rights.

Hughes, Dhana. 2013. Violence, Torture, and Memory in Sri Lanka: Life after Terror. New York: Routledge.

International Crisis Group. 2008. “Sri Lanka's Eastern Province: Land, Development, Conflict.” Asia Report, no. 159. New York: International Crisis Group.

International Crisis Group. 2012. “Sri Lanka's North II: Rebuilding Under the Military.” Asia Report, no. 220. New York: International Crisis Group.

Ismail, Qadri. 2005. Abiding by Sri Lanka: On Peace, Place and Postcoloniality. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Jeganathan, Pradeep, and Qadri Ismail, eds. 1995. Unmaking the Nation: The Politics of Identity and History in Modern Sri Lanka. Colombo: Social Scientists’ Association.

McGilvray, Dennis, and Mirak Raheem. 2007. “Muslim Perspectives on the Sri Lankan Conflict.” Washington, DC: East–West Center.

Scott, David. 1999. Refashioning Futures: Criticism after Postcoloniality. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Spencer, Jonathan, ed. 1990. Sri Lanka: History and the Roots of Conflict. New York: Routledge.

Thiranagama, Sharika. 2012. In My Mother’s House: Civil War in Sri Lanka. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Valentine, E. Daniel. 1996. Charred Lullabies: Chapters in an Anthropography of Violence. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Whitaker, Mark. 2006. Learning Politics from Sivaram: The Life and Death of a Tamil Revolutionary Journalist. London: Pluto Press.

Sri Lanka websites

The Centre for Poverty Analysis

The International Centre for Ethnic Studies

University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna)