ABSTRACT
At the core of this article lies the attempt to consider “radical egalitarianism” a defining feature of “borderscapes”, that is the space in which distinct socio-spatial identities between territorial claims and counter-claims at the margins of larger political entities are negotiated. These more general considerations are exemplified by a genealogical excursion into the dominantly Pashtun-inhabited regions around the Hindukush and its foothills. In a first step, the emergence of distinct ethnicities and religiosities as result of such asymmetrical negotiation processes, which are also strongly informed by the urban-rural divide, is highlighted by a historical recourse into the later seventeenth century. In the two successive steps, then, the further modifications of those ethnicities and religiosities since the late nineteenth century are indicated, painting an image of the “Pashtun borderscape” in which even militant movements like those of the present time can be understood as just a manifestation of such kind of negotiation processes that limit the scope of “us” and “them” ever further. It will be illustrated how an ever changing semantics of “egality”, which nonetheless is construed as entirely static, is established as a core benchmark of belonging.
