Swat in the eye of the storm: Interview with Akbar Ahmed
The new issue of Anthropology Today is out. This issue features an interview with Akbar Ahmad, who holds the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at the American University in Washington, DC, and was the first Chair of Middle East/Islamic Studies at the US Naval Academy. His new book is Journey into America: The challenge of Islam, Brookings Institution Press (2010 forthcoming). He has just completed the film Journey into America, an anthropological study of American identity as seen through the eyes of Americans – both Muslim and non-Muslim (for a review see pp. 23–24 of this issue).
In this interview, Akbar Ahmed looks at the latest developments among the Swat Pathan, a people who have been the subject of classic ethnographies in anthropology for many years, but who are now at the centre of a bigger battle for control of this key geo-political region. What, if anything, can anthropologists contribute to understand and ameliorate the conflicts that rage in this region?
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Swat in the eye of the storm: Interview with Akbar Ahmed
