Fatal embrace: trading in hospitality on the frontiers of South and Central Asia

Abstract

This paper explores the contested yet critical importance of hospitality to the everyday lives of Afghan traders in Afghanistan and the Central Asian Republic of Tajikistan. Ethnographically, it focuses on the ways in which these people's relationship to the norms and values of hospitality are often highly reflective and shot through with irony, irreverence, and wit. Theoretically, it aims to move beyond anthropological approaches to the study of morality that document tensions between calculation and ethics in everyday life to a position that reflects the co‐implication of these facets of morality. Résumé Le présent article explore l'importance, contestée mais centrale, de l'hospitalité dans la vie quotidienne des marchands afghans en Afghanistan et au Tadjikistan voisin. Du point de vue ethnographique, il se concentre sur la manière dont la relation de ces marchands avec les normes et valeurs de l'hospitalité est souvent fortement réflexive et teintée d'ironie, d'irrévérence et d'humour. Sur le plan théorique, il cherche à dépasser les approches anthropologiques de l'étude de la moralité qui rendent compte des tensions entre calcul et éthique dans la vie quotidienne pour mettre en lumière l'implication conjointe de ces aspects de la moralité.

Dual-heritage households: Food, culture, and re-membering in Hamilton, New Zealand

“…Particular practices of hospitality are indicative of cultural heritage (Marsden, 2012), and go beyond the mere physical provision or offering of food to guests. Rather, hospitality requires freely giving time, attention, consideration and effort to ensure that guests are welcomed and made comfortable (Jansen, 1997).…”

“…Manaakitanga foregrounds the importance of paying heed to the needs of other people as a basis for building reciprocal and trusting relationships, and is implemented through reciprocity, hospitality, kindness, and the provision of food (Johnson, Hodgetts, & Nikora, 2013). Similarly, the performance of hospitality is central to the identities of many South Asian peoples (Marsden, 2012). Amongst South Asian cultures the provision and consumption of food is considered essential for any social gathering (Mellin-Olsen & Wandel, 2005).…”

Central Asia, Anthropology of

“…Rasuly-Paleczek (2005) shows the advantages of drawing on other Turkic analyses of relationships between tribe and state; Marsden (2012) suggests comparison and integration with southwest Asia and broader imagined Muslim communities. Rasuly-Paleczek (2005) shows the advantages of drawing on other Turkic analyses of relationships between tribe and state; Marsden (2012) suggests comparison and integration with southwest Asia and broader imagined Muslim communities.…”

Repertoires of Family Life and the Anchoring of Afghan Trading Networks in Ukraine

“…Peletz 2001;Wikan 1990). Increasingly, this ambivalence towards kin has also been documented ethnographically within commercial communities, a type of social formation previously assumed to be held together by kin-based forms of trust (Chang 2011;Marsden 2011Marsden , 2015. The material presented in this article extends these critiques by problematizing further the notion that "trade diasporas" form culturally bounded groups.…”