Iranian Journal Of Antheropology

Iranian Journal Of Antheropology

Revisiting the Tribe: Sectarian Spatialization and the Anthropology of the State in Afghanistan

Document Type : Research Paper

Author
Elmirasadat Alihosseini
PhD in Anthropology from the University of Toronto & Postdoc at University of Tehran.
10.22034/jasi.2026.733662
Abstract
This article revisits one of the most enduring paradigms in the ethnography of Afghanistan—the segmentary lineage model—and examines its limitations in accounting for the historical processes that shaped the modern Afghan state. While classic anthropological theories often treat tribal structures and state authority as separate domains, this article argues that the Afghan state emerged not from the decline of tribal structures, but through an intensification of their internal hierarchies. Focusing on the mass displacement and marginalization of Hazara Shi’as under Abdur Rahman Khan in the late nineteenth century, the article contends that these acts of violence were not breakdowns of order but state-making practices rooted in sectarian, territorial, and ethnic reconfigurations.
Drawing on archival materials, colonial texts, and critical anthropological theory, the article shows how Hazara displacement functioned as a constitutive technique of sovereignty. The first section critiques the segmentary lineage theory, engaging scholars such as Akbar Ahmad, Talal Asad, and Michael Meeker. The second examines Abdur Rahman’s cartographic imagination and the spatialization of sectarian difference through forced migrations and land redistribution.
Ultimately, the article challenges binaries such as tribe/state and custom/law by demonstrating how state formation in Afghanistan was deeply embedded in tribal logics. Displacement, it argues, should be understood not as a sign of failure, but as a foundational technique in the historical construction of Afghan sovereignty.
Keywords
Anthropology of the state
Segmentary lineage theory
Hazara Afghans' displacement
Tribal-state relations
Historical anthropology
Subjects
Abdur Rahman Khan. (1900). The Life of Abdur Rahman, Amir of Afghanistan. Edited by Mir Munshi Sultan Mahomed Khan. 2 vols. London: John Murray.
Adelkhah, F. and Olszewska, Z. (2007). “The Iranian Afghans.” Iranian Studies. 40(2): 137–165.
Ahmad, A. S. (1976) Millennium and Charisma Among Pathans: A Critical Essay in Social Anthropology. London: Routledge.
Asad, T. (1972). Market Model, Class Structure and Consent: A Reconsideration of Swat Political Organization. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology. 28(3): 221–236.
Barfield, T. (2010). Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Barth, F. (1959). Political Leadership among Swat Pathans. London: Athlone Press.
Bellew, H. W. (1880). The Races of Afghanistan: Being a Brief Account of the Principal Nations Inhabiting That Country. Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Co.
Lee, J. (2019). Afghanistan: A History from 1260 to the Present. Reaktion Books.
Li, T. M. (2014). Land’s End: Capitalist Relations on an Indigenous Frontier. Durham: Duke University Press.
Meeker, M. (2002). A Nation of Empire: The Ottoman Legacy of Turkish Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Mitchell, T. (1991). The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and Their Critics. American Political Science Review. 85(1): 77–96.
Mousavi, S. A. (1997). The Hazaras of Afghanistan: An Historical, Cultural, Economic and Political Study. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Noelle, C. (1997). State and Tribe in Nineteenth-Century Afghanistan: The Reign of Amir Dost Muhammad Khan (1826–1863). Richmond: Curzon Press.
Poladi, H. (1989). The Hazaras. Stockton: Mughal Publishing Company.
Scott, J. C. (1998). Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Tapper, R. (1983).Introduction. In The Conflict of Tribe and State in Iran and Afghanistan. ed by Richard Tapper. New York: St. Martin’s Press, p.1-82.
Trouillot, M. (1995). Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston: Beacon Press.
Iranian Journal Of Antheropology
Volume 21, Issue 39
January 2025
Pages 203-231