IMPERIAL INTERVENTIONS AND CULTURAL DISRUPTION IN PASHTUN SOCIETY: A CRITICAL STUDY OF THE DOMESTICATION OF WOMEN IN PASHTO TAPA

Abstract

This study critically analyses the agency and social role of women in Pashtun society through two different periods of its history i.e before the USSR invasion and the USA proxy wars and in its aftermath. The study critically analyses the influence of the war on the Pashtun culture and society especially with reference to the women rights and agency. The study examines how women’s rights and agency underwent drastic changes. The study contends that the existing status of women is not indigenous trait of the Pashtun culture rather the war and extremism resulted into women’s domestication. The study uses the Pashto Tapa as the primary source of the data. The analysis is conducted under the theoretical framework of Jeffrey C. Alexander’s Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity (2004). The study concludes that women’s rights and agency has been affected by the external ideologies and the maneuverings of the interested sections.