Trading Worlds: Afghan Merchants Across Modern Frontiers [Paperback]

A remarkable anthropological study of Afghan merchants that tells us much about how trading diasporas function in an era of globalization.Trading Worlds is an anthropological study of a little understood yet rapidly expanding global trading diaspora, namely the Afghan merchants of Afghanistan, Central Asia and Europe. 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 play in an ever-more globalized political economy. 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, Magnus Marsden 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.PrefaceIntroduction: Afghan Traders Across Modern FrontiersChapter 1: Afghan Traders in Central Asia: Perspectives from TajikistanChapter 2: Karachi-Qurghon: Routes MatterChapter 3: Afghan Migrants and Urban Life in Central AsiaChapter 4: Everyday Diplomacy on the Frontiers of South and Central AsiaChapter 5: Migrants, Militants and Merchants: Ahmed's Story, From Trader to TalibChapter 6: Trading in Hospitality on the Frontiers of South and Central AsiaChapter 7: Afghan Merchants of the North London MarshesConclusionsMagnus Marsden is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Sussex. He has spent fifteen years conducting research in both Afghanistan and Pakistan and, with Benjamil“4