Beyond state-centrism, towards acknowledging relationality: understanding afghanistan from an inter-asian perspective

Scholars across the social sciences and humanities working on Afghanistan have sought to explore in recent years the country’s dynamics in relation to an inter-Asia approach. Scholarship in the field of inter-Asia studies has sought to move beyond the discrete study of sub-regions and to focus instead on connections, circulations and comparisons within, across and beyond Asian contexts. Work in this vein has enabled interdisciplinary work on Asia to question the previously taken-for-granted boundaries of nation-states, culture areas, and large aggregate societies, and to challenge the tendency of work in the field to revolve around comparisons between Asia and the West. The withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan in 2021 and the return to power of the Taliban provides a moment to reflect critically on the implications of inter-Asian studies to the analysis of the country. There is growing recognition by historians of Afghanistan’s location at criss-crossing cultural, political, and economic inter-Asian dynamics yet the country is widely depicted as of marginal significance, both to the wider world and to Asia. This article builds on the inter-Asian studies literature and documents the role that a range of diverse networks comprising mobile people from Afghanistan play in connecting the country to multiple regional contexts and mediating the influence of the political trends in these on its dynamics.