This study seeks to do three things: Firstly, it establishes the larger theoretical framework within which the thesis question is placed. This pertains to the competition between enduring, pre-state substructures and the postcolonial state as an underlying cause of the political instability that characterises the experience of the postcolonial state in Asia. The study does this by addressing the cases of the Kurds, the Bedouin, and the Pashtuns. Secondly, the study examines in detail the Afghan borderland as a case where sub-state polities in the form of tribes are in direct competition with the Pakistani and Afghan states along the Durand Line.
Thirdly, the study explores the underlying structural causes for resurgent tribal autonomy in the Afghan borderland by analysing ideational drivers for tribalism, patterns of inter-tribal competition, tribe-state competition, structures of economic flows across the borderland, structures of migratory flows across the borderland, and patterns of militancy. The study establishes its findings relating to these areas of examination through the modalities of literature examination, general contextual observation, and empirical analysis.
The study establishes the larger contextual framework of competition between the postcolonial state and pre-state forms of polity primarily through a survey of existing literature pertaining to the experience of the postcolonial state in the context of Asia. The study seeks to establish that Asia is characterised by political and administrative experiences, predating the advent of European colonialism by millennia, interrupted by a period of direct and indirect European colonialism between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. Three nodes of political gravity are particularly notable in this period: the Turko-Arab experience of west Asia, Mughal India, and successive dynasties in Persia- all three of which were transnational states with administrative centres and provincial differentiation. This study addresses the Turko-Arab experience of west Asia through the literature, examining varying paradigms of analysis of the experience of the postcolonial state against the backdrop of the larger transnational polity in Turkey and Arabia.
The study then proceeds to examine normative, ideational, anthropological, and political aspects of Pashtun tribal society as a means through which to understand the psycho-social dynamics that underlie the social and political reality of the Afghan borderland. This the study does through a combination of literature examination and general contextual observation.
This study does not seek to break new ground in the field of anthropology as it relates to Pashtun tribal phenomena. Extensive literature has already been dedicated to the study of Pashtun culture, norms, language and history from anthropological and historical perspective.
This extensive body of work is referred to, and many of its findings adopted, by this study.
Further, general observations of patterns of social organisation and behavioural norms amongst the tribal Pashtuns are made through this study. These observations, undertaken by the author, are referred to as contextual observations as they contribute to the establishment, along with literature analysis, of the larger socio-cultural context of Pashtun tribal society in the Afghan borderland.
The study then proceeds to make a detailed analysis of dynamics within the Afghan borderland between and among the principal tribes, and between these tribes and the state.
These dynamics include; structures and patterns of competition and alliance amongst the tribes, both within FATA and across the Durand Line; the conduct of the state and the military in the borderland; the structure of economic flows across the borderland – both state regulated and ‘unregulated’; patterns of migration across the Durand Line; and trends in the militancy currently being waged across the borderland. In addition, the study makes a detailed
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examination into the physical, demographic, infrastructural and geographic aspects of the borderland. In each specific aspect of borderland reality analysed, factors are divided into dependent and independent variables to be further analysed in the pursuit of possible cause-effect relationships, and the elaboration of possible trends that may be replicable in other areas of examination. This detailed analysis is built upon empirically established findings.
These are established through fieldwork across the borderland, carried out prior to and during the compilation of this study. Field work consisted of two fundamental aspects; participant observation and surveying.
Participant observation involved living with and travelling amongst the tribal Pashtuns of the borderland for a total period of 4 months during the compilation of this study, and three years immediately preceding it. During these periods, detailed observations of the nature of tribal Pashtun social and political life were made relating to pashtunwali, Pashto, rites relating to marriage, birth and death, tribal conflict, jirga, and how the Pashtun understand the impact of international events directly related to the borderland as part of a wider psycho-social paradigm revolving around khpal, kor, khel. These observations form the basis of much of the analysis in this study of millennial tribal trends relating to conflict, autonomy and the notion of Pakhtunkhwa.
Further to participant observation, field work was conducted in 2008-9 through the method of interviewing. Interviews were conducted with a variety of personalities from FATA, the military, the KP provincial administration and the Pakistani Federal administration, and representatives of the Afghan government. Interviews were guided by a series of questions formulated prior to fieldwork being undertaken, relating to tribal dynamics and tribe-state relations. However, through the course of fieldwork, it became apparent that different elements of the survey were of varying degrees of relevance for particular interviewees.
Hence, interviews more closely resembled detailed conversations with particular individuals, guided by the themes considered most relevant for the interviewee at that point in time. The nature of the interviews were not of a quantitative method of analysis, in contrast with other studies that were conducted in FATA during the same period which relied heavily on numbers of subjects surveyed and interviewed in order to deduce a trend in the area of migration dynamics.43 Rather, in this study interviews were conducted in order to construct a understanding of the deeper psycho-social driving factors behind many of the trends in the borderland, as well as seeking to verify information and analysis pertaining to the borderland
through interviewing personalities directly involved in developments as part of the military, the state and tribes. As such, the interviews are considered a qualitative method of analysis.