Caravans And Trade In Afghanistan

Beskrivelse

A detailed study of the Hazarbuz, a Pashtun Mohmand subgroup, focusing on their caravan trade along historic Silk Road routes in East Afghanistan. The book explores their socio-economic and political shifts over the last century.

An in-depth look at the transformation of the Hazarbuz community from nomadic traders to settled bazaar dwellers and refugees.

The Hazarbuz, part of the Pashtun Mohmand, have long been involved in caravan trading across East Afghanistan on routes connecting to Turkestan, historically linked to the Silk Road-the ancient bridge between East and West. This book traces the community’s journey through significant socio-economic and political changes during the past hundred years.

It charts their evolution from a pastoral lifestyle to establishing themselves in Afghan bazaars and, more recently, in densely populated refugee camps in Pakistan, where many sought refuge after 1979. The analysis draws on the author’s field research combined with limited literary sources.

The narrative explores historical influences that both encouraged and compelled the nomadic Hazarbuz to engage in camel transport and, starting in the 1920s, to shift towards trade. While they exported various Afghan products to the Indus lowlands, their primary income came from importing and selling tea in northern Afghanistan.

This transformation of the Hazarbuz pastoral economy is examined within a broader framework of cultural and political shifts, with special focus on kinship beliefs, social structures, and ideas of solidarity.

The book also includes:

• An appendix detailing fieldwork among the Hazarbuz
• A bibliography
• A glossary
• An index

Published in 1995 as part of The Carlsberg Foundation’s Nomad Research Project, this hardcover edition spans 294 pages and features 184 illustrations (86 in color) plus 9 maps, such as ethnic group distributions, Hazarbuz seasonal migration routes, and caravan paths.

This work complements studies by Gorm Pedersen (Afghan Nomads in Transition, 1994) and Klaus Ferdinand (Afghan Nomads, 2006), as well as Asta Olesen’s Afghan Craftsmen (1994), all within the same research series.

Birthe Frederiksen, a social anthropologist, conducted fieldwork with pastoral nomads and bazaar merchants in Afghanistan in 1975 and returned in 1988 to continue her research among the same groups in Pakistani refugee camps.

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