ABSTRACT
In attending to circulation patterns in Eastern Afghanistan, this chapter looks at the ways enduring distinctions are the object of everyday appropriations and shape patterns of difference and migration. It interrogates how recent global interventions map into distinct trajectories of marginalization and integration in the Afghan Pamirs, invest and are guided by patterned forms of circulation, recall enduring imaginaries, and strengthen the power of static categories. Following paths enables to distinguish patterns of circulation from the actual messiness of interactions, dialogues, and exchanges across symbolic and scalar boundaries. This chapter asks how circulations materialize in distinct but interwoven scalar temporalities (pastoral seasonal rhythms, market and political ventures, soldiers’ patrols, rangers’ and development workers’ visits, etc.). This chapter principally consists of a reexamination of spatial and boundary-making practices in movement, including in ethnographic writing. It aims to retrace in void and relief the pervasive and performative force of static distinctions (such as us/them, inside/outside, Kyrgyz, Wakhi, Afghan, etc.) as well as the formation of patterned and interwoven sets of interaction in recursive iterations within and across the apparently established boundaries of the Afghan state and its many instances.
