Afghan Village Voices

Afghanistan in the 20th century was virtually unknown in Europe and America. At peace until the 1970s, the country was seen as a remote and exotic land, visited only by adventurous tourists or researchers. Afghan Village Voices is a testament to this little-known period of peace and captures a society and culture now lost. Prepared by two of the most accomplished and well-known anthropologists of the Middle East and Central Asia, Richard Tapper and Nancy Tapper-Lindisfarne, this is a book of stories told by the Piruzai, a rural Afghan community of some 200 families who farmed in northern Afghanistan and in summer took their flocks to the central Hazârajât mountains. The book comprises a collection of remarkable stories, folktales and conversations and provides unprecedented insight into the depth and colour of these people’s lives. Recorded in the early 1970s, the stories range from memories of the Piruzai migration to the north a half century before, to the feuds, ethnic strife and the doings of powerful khans. There are also stories of falling in love, elopements, marriages, childbirth and the world of spirits. The book includes vignettes of the narrators, photographs, maps and a full glossary. It is a remarkable document of Afghanistan at peace, told by a people whose voices have rarely been heard.

This is therefore a considerable collection, both in terms of quality and quantity, representing an enormous amount of work, first of transcribing the contents of the magnetic tapes, then of translating the transcribed texts from Pashtu into English ... The resident originality and interest of the work of Tappe: delivering the speech lived in Piruzai on themselves, it offers an attractive the illustration of the sometimes called the perspective emic (indigenous) distinguishing it from the perspective etic (one of the researchers, anthropologists , sociologists, historians, etc). Through a richness and authenticity of the information, Afghan Village Voices could possibly encourage some researchers to attempt an etic approach without having to endure the discomforts of the ethnographic field!, A rich portrayal of a people who, fifty years ago, vividly described their own lives and the world around them in Afghanistan from deeply personal perspectives. It brilliantly recovers a time, now seeming long past, when war was unknown and local conflicts were believed to arise only from disputes over zar, zan and zamin (money, women and land)., What makes anthropology is its tradition of ethnographic reporting: we go out and listen to people so as to understand their world and their problems and then report on what we have heard/learned with as little editorial correction as possible. This is a superb book in the finest tradition of ethnography. The authors have collected much detail on the ways of life and ways of thinking that made the life of the Piruzai meaningful and functioning. It retains much of the flavor of the language, the turns of phrase, and the categories of significance that are meaningful to them. To do this well, as they have, takes much care in listening, in transcribing, and in producing an ethnographic report that is faithful to one’s sources. This is an exemplary work, of the highest standard of anthropological reporting., The book is absolutely fascinating and hooked my attention from the start. It will introduce contemporary readers to an Afghanistan that, sadly, no longer exists, and it will bring about both deeper understanding and respect for Afghans as humorous, passionate, pragmatic and wise people - as fully human rather than as "Taliban fighters", religious extremists, or voiceless women., Fifty years ago, around firesides and cups of tea, women and men in this close-knit Afghan community gained a taste for recording their stories. It was a way of setting the record straight, and being heard. Their experiences of love, loss, deceit, revenge, peace-making, scandal, kindness and joy are told with equanimity and humour. This is fieldwork at its finest – intimate, and beautifully contextualised.

Richard Tapper is Professor Emeritus at SOAS, University of London. He is a social anthropologist who has conducted ethnographic field research in Iran, Afghanistan and Turkey. His publications include the monographs Pasture and Politics: Economics, Conflict, and Ritual among Shahsevan Nomads of Northwestern Iran, as well as Frontier Nomads of Iran: A Political and Social History of the Shahsevan and Islam and Democracy in Iran: Eshkevari and the Quest for Reform. He is also well-known for the books Nomadic Peoples of Iran, The New Iranian Cinema and A Taste of Thyme. Nancy Lindisfarne-Tapper taught social anthropology at SOAS, University of London for many years. She has carried out fieldwork in Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, Syria, Wales and the USA. Her books include Bartered Brides: Politics, Gender and Marriage in an Afghan Tribal Society, Dancing in Damascus, The Roots of Sexual Violence, and the edited Dislocating Masculinity: Comparative Ethnographies, and Masculinities under Neoliberalism.