Television and the Afghan Culture Wars

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Television and the Afghan Culture Wars
Wazhmah Osman
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Paperback
h229 x 152mm - 208pg
15 Nov 2020 US
9780252085451
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Portrayed in Western discourse as tribal and traditional, Afghans have in fact intensely debated women' s rights, democracy, modernity, and Islam as part of their nation building in the post-9/11 era. Wazhmah Osman places television at the heart of these public and politically charged clashes while revealing how the medium also provides war-weary Afghans with a semblance of open discussion and healing. After four decades of gender and sectarian violence, she argues, the internationally funded media sector has the potential to bring about justice, national integration, and peace. Fieldwork from across Afghanistan allowed Osman to record the voices of many Afghan media producers and people. Afghans offer their own seldom-heard views on the country' s cultural progress and belief systems, their understandings of themselves, and the role of international interventions. Osman analyzes the impact of transnational media and foreign funding while keeping the focus on local cultural contestations, productions, and social movements. As a result, she redirects the global dialogue about Afghanistan to Afghans and challenges top-down narratives of humanitarian development.
"Television and the Afghan Culture Wars is an insightful, powerful book. Weaving together nuanced ethnography, complex media theory, and even a touch of personal memoir, Osman provides a compelling perspective on the world of Afghan television. Nuanced and deeply researched, the book is an important contribution to a number of fields, including war and conflict studies, media globalization, and development communication. "--Matt Sienkiewicz, author of The Other Air Force: U. S. Efforts to Reshape Middle Eastern Media since 9/11 "This is the first richly observed ethnographic account of the landscape of media in post-US invasion Afghanistan. Osman' s self-reflexive voice in telling the story of the dynamic media field in Afghanistan is in and of itself of import. The limited scholarship that exists on media and democracy under occupation in the Global South tends to reproduce paternalistic narratives of development. In contrast, this critical work foregrounds the geopolitical context that leads to a television ' boom,' highlighting the important role of women and ethnic minority communities in Afghani media production and consumption. Television and Afghan Culture Wars is a must read for scholars and students of global media and American empire. "--Paula Chakravartty, coeditor of Race, Empire and the Crisis of the Subprime
Wazhmah Osman is a filmmaker and assistant professor in the Klein College of Media and Communication at Temple University. She is the codirector of the critically acclaimed documentary Postcards from Tora Bora and the coauthor of Afghanistan: A Very Short Introduction.
Status: Active
ISBN-13: 9780252085451
Published: 15 Nov 2020
Published In: United States
Imprint: University of Illinois Press
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Format: Paperback
Height: 229mm
Width: 152mm
Pages: 208

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