Description: Decolonizing Afghanistan examines how Afghan communities have subverted, resisted, and participated in colonial projects from the early twentieth century to the present, with a particular focus on the US intervention that began in 2001.
Review Quotes: "Groundbreaking, refreshing, eloquent, and powerful, Decolonizing Afghanistan makes a crucial intervention into the knowledge produced on Afghanistan in the United States and more broadly. It provides nuance, depth, and original perspectives in its analysis of Afghanistan's social, political, economic, and intellectual histories, and in its unique approach of decoloniality. Thanks to its wide scope and analytical richness, it represents a turning point in the dominant understanding of Afghanistan."--Zahra Ali, author of, Women and Gender in Iraq: Between Nation-Building and Fragmentation
"Employing dynamic decolonial approaches, this pathbreaking multidisciplinary volume does the crucial work of putting Afghanistan in the context of colonialism studies. Richly textured and brimming with historical context, it is the volume we need to teach about overlapping colonial formations, how diasporic and local political contestations can occur in tandem, and the vitality of Afghan cultural production. Including Afghanistan in colonialism studies, as this book implores us to do, is a must for our time."--Amahl Bishara, author of, Crossing a Line: Laws, Violence, and Roadblocks to Palestinian Political Expression "... Decolonizing Afghanistan makes a valuable contribution by re-centering Afghanistan within broader debates on empire, knowledge and power. It challenges scholars of Asian studies, international relations and development to interrogate the epistemological assumptions underpinning their work. The volume will be of particular interest to researchers and graduate students engaged in decolonial approaches, critical security studies and the politics of intervention, and it represents an important step toward rethinking Afghanistan beyond imperial epistemic frames."--Zulfia Abawe, International Quarterly of Asian Studies