The social wandering of the Afghan Kuchis
Subtitle: changing patterns, perceptions and politics of an Afghan community
By: Fabrizio Faschini
Contributors: Afghanistan Analysts Network
Series: AAN thematic report -- 04/2013; AAN thematic report -- 04/2013.
Publisher: Afghanistan Analysts Network
Published: 2013
Place of publication: [Kabul]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 30
Subjects: Afghan War, 2001-; Social aspects; Pushtuns; Social conditions; Nomads; Minorities; Political activity; Land tenure; Kuchis
Description: This report explores the major impact of changing social, economic and political conditions on the Kuchi community over recent years and its consequences for their position in Afghan society. In the first part of his paper, Foschini discusses the dynamics that have affected the Kuchis in recent history, focusing on the waves of expansion and decline in their socio-economic activities in the face of Afghanistan's political and economic changes. He explains how these changes have led to the recent and increasing trend towards their sedentarisation. The second part of the paper examines land conflicts involving Kuchis, as well as the patterns of Kuchi voting during recent electoral consultations. It also assesses the importance of the state's political recognition of the Kuchis in the emergence of a particular class of Kuchi powerbrokers. Foschini finally argues that although the factors causing the sedentarisation trend may be too large to tackle, it is important to seek to improve the conditions of settlement for those Kuchis who can no longer cope with a nomadic lifestyle, and to do so, not through the mediation of the usual powerbrokers, but through state institutions, in a non-partisan and neutral way.
Notes: "November 2013."

Includes bibliographical references.