Idris Khan

Although this report contains a few quotable snippets, the main impression is that it represents a missed opportunity. The author speaks in terms of outcomes, and very little about process: how were discussions *actually* handled, etc. The narrative he offers has had all the sharp edges of real life, which is the real value of ethnographic observation, smoothed away until there is only a bloodless idealized version. That is better than nothing, perhaps, but it could have been so much more, and so much more valuable. All in all, a disappointment.… (mehr)

A follow up to the author's earlier publication on jirgas. Here we get an interesting description of the social structural characteristics of the tribunals, and what roles they are expected to play. This content, based on his own observations, can be useful depending on the reader's purposes. Tidbits include the findings that religious figures serve roles in the fomenting of war, but not of peace; that (unlike mediation institutions in other societies that seek to "find the balance" or otherwise dissipate the tensions) jirgas do not necessarily reconcile the disputants but only settles a particular disagreement.

The second half of the book is the author's MA thesis, which bears little relationship to the topic, and was probably included to fill out the pages.… (mehr)