Where do nomads bury their dead? Necro-ostracism, statelessness, and the pastoral/ peripatetic divide in Afghanistan

Abstract

This article proposes that stigmas connected to social categories of exclusion prevalent during life extend into dealings with the dead, here referred to as ‘necro-ostracism’, in the context of death and burial of Muslim nomadic populations in urban Afghanistan. Based on qualitative fieldwork carried out in Kabul, Herat, and Mazar-e Sharif, it explores how the unequal status of pastoral and peripatetic nomads, mediated through a combination of legal status and social stereotypes, renders one group integrated and protected and another stateless. This status in life crosses over into people's differential and often unclear status in death, creating conflicts and problems associated with burial decisions for families based on their general social position in society. This positioning was exacerbated after the US-led armed intervention in 2001, when access to land, particularly state-owned as well as agricultural and pasture-land, became a potent political currency in Afghanistan. Land grabbing – even of cemeteries – became a lucrative source of income and way to establish political loyalties. Taking an approach that focuses on inter-community negotiation, the article considers how the different statuses of these structurally similar communities is navigated in the interaction between nomadic communities and burial gatekeepers.