Social Science Research Council

"Making Everyday Life in the Context of Conflict: Practices of Music, Chess and Gardening in Herat, Afghanistan"

This research investigates the interplay of the recent history of violence in contemporary Afghanistan with the processes of cultural identification and the activities of daily survival as expressed in the accounts of ordinary Afghans. By focusing on three popular social practices: chess, music and gardening in the cities of Herat and Kabul, I will investigate the effects of war on the social life, material circumstances and changing meanings of both participation in these practices and the everyday lives of war-affected communities. As entry points into the daily life of communities, as sites of relative continuity amidst tremendous instability, and as creative activities that are shared across informal social networks, these three practices offer distinctive vantage points from which to examine how the war experience continues to be felt in contemporary Herat and Kabul. An important goal of this research is to explore how the history of conflict affects cultural and political identification, specifically how Afghans understand themselves as members of a local, urban community and as members of the national community/project of Afghans. This project diverges from much of recent scholarship on Afghanistan by shifting research attention away from the cultural or historical causes of conflict, instead asking how the experience of violence enters and lingers in the lives of those subjected to it.