About the Conference
Unpacking Afghanistan's Past and Present
4-5 Nov 2023
09:00 am
‘Bringing Afghanistan to Scale: Perspectives on Local, National and Global Dynamics’ builds on three previous interdisciplinary academic events centring on Afghanistan, which have sought to bring together scholars and practitioners researching the country and its diaspora. Our first three events were held in 2018, 2019, and 2022 at SOAS University of London where we brought together junior researchers together to present their new and innovative research and engage with other scholars in the field, with the aim of reaching a wider international Afghanistan Studies network bringing together established and newer researchers.
until the conference...
In partnership with...
Conference Programme
This years conference will consist of four diverse panels and sixteen presentations. Scholars will present on a variety of important topics and issues, from exploring the lack of humanitarian access under the current regime, to political memory among the Afghan diaspora, to Afghanistan's regional cooperation with Turkmenistan.
Day One: In Person
Panel 1: Conflicting Priorities and Precedents: Local Population versus National and International Actors
​
Panel 2: At Home and Abroad: Society, Culture, and Power
​
Panel 3: Unpacking human rights crises in Afghanistan: going beyond the current debates?
​
Panel 4: Placing Afghanistan in its regional context: energy, (in)security, and trade
Day Two: Virtual
Panel 1 (Leipzig University): Media System and Public Sphere of Afghanistan
​
Panel 2: At the Intersection of the Global, the Regional, and the Local
​
Panel 3: Power, Society, and Rights: Social Groups, Identities, and Modes of Ruling
​
Panel 4 (Raoul Wallenberg Institute, Lund University): Human Rights Under the Taliban
Meet the Organisers
Bismillah Alizada
Bismellah Alizada is a Ph.D. Candidate at SOAS University of London. His Ph.D. research focuses on the demands for decentralization among political elites of ethnic Hazaras in Afghanistan.
Dr Rabia Khan
Rabia Khan is a Research Fellow at the University of Sussex. She completed her PhD at SOAS, where her doctoral research examined Hazara ethnic consciousness. She also holds an LLM in Human Rights from SOAS.
