Kabul carnival: gender politics in postwar Afghanistan

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the plight of Afghan women under Taliban rule was widely publicized in the United States as one of the humanitarian issues justifying intervention. 'Kabul Carnival' explores the contradictions, ambiguities and unintended effects of the emancipatory projects for Afghan women designed and imposed by external organisations.

Building on embodiment and performance theory, this evocative ethnography describes Afghan women's responses to social anxieties about identity that have emerged as a result of the military occupation.