DATE: 4 p.m. March 12, 2009.

EVENT: Panel discussion “Afghanistan?The Once and Future War” with David B. Edwards, W. Van Alan Clark ’41 Third Century Professor in the Social Sciences, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Williams College; Alessandro Monsutti, 2008-09 postdoctoral fellow, Agrarian Studies Program, Yale University, and social anthropologist, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva; and M. Nazif Shahrani, chair, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, and professor of anthropology, Central Asian and Middle Eastern studies, Indiana University.

During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama argued that U.S. military efforts had been misdirected into Iraq and that the center of foreign-policy attention and the main target of military action should be terrorist groups based in Afghanistan and along the Afghan/Pakistani border.

Three of the world’s pre-eminent experts who have studied the interactions among Afghanistan’s major communities and the outside world will offer their insights on the social and cultural landscape of Afghanistan today. David Edwards has written two books on the intersection of culture and politics in Afghanistan, exploring the emergence of a “moral incoherence” that, he argues, lies at the heart of the Afghan state.. Nazif Shahrani has written widely about Afghan society and culture, with a particular sensitivity to the concerns and perspectives of non-Pashtun communities located in the north. His work highlights the ways previous Afghan leaders have claimed to seek a unitary, integral state, but in ways that only backfire when in reality they reproduce patterns of centralized and even colonial rule. Monsutti has explored the world of Afghanistan’s main Shia minority, the Hazara. His book highlights the connections between this group and a wider Muslim world?particularly through the use of hawala, or informal financial networks, that reach far beyond the Afghan frontier.

PLACE: Room 1636 International Institute, University of Michigan, 1080 South University, Ann Arbor.

SPONSORS: Center for Russian and East European Studies, Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies, Center for South Asian Studies, and Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies. The Center for Russian and East European Studies and Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies are affiliates of the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia.

WEB LINKS: Center for Europe and Eurasia