Marsden, Magnus and Ibanez-Tirado, Diana (2018) Afghanistan’s cosmopolitan trading networks: a view from Yiwu, China. In: Challenging Cosmopolitanism: Coercion, Mobility and Displacement in Islamic Asia. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, pp. 225-250. ISBN 9781474435093

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Abstract

The focus of this chapter is the city of Yiwu and the nature of Afghan networks present there. By inserting such networks both in the context of the wider global settings, and in terms of the traders’ experience of space in Yiwu, we seek to contribute to an emerging body of literature on Muslim cosmopolitanism in two ways. First, we bring attention to the ways in which the expressions of Muslim cosmopolitanism visible in Yiwu are premised on violent histories of international conflict and interference that have led to massive displacements of the country’s people, as well the bleaching out of the country’s own religious diversity. Secondly, we recognise that if the traders with whom we work are cosmopolitan in some aspects of their lives, then in others they reinforce and sustain collective commitment to national, regional, ideological and confessional identities, identities that are also of critical significance to their activities as traders.

Item Type:	Book Section
Keywords:	cosmopolitanism, traders, Yiwu, Afghanistan, trading networks, mobility
Schools and Departments:	School of Global Studies > Anthropology
Research Centres and Groups:	Sussex Asia
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GN Anthropology > GN301 Ethnology. Social and cultural anthropology H Social Sciences > HC Economic history and conditions
Depositing User:	Diana Ibanez-Tirado
Date Deposited:	03 Nov 2017 11:41
Last Modified:	30 Nov 2018 16:11
URI:	http://srodev.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/70891

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