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DR James Caron's Outputs (24)

Introduction to ‘Islamic politics and the imaginative: intangibility and critique’ (2025)
Journal Article
Sehlikoglu, S., Caron, J., & Polat, A. (online). Introduction to ‘Islamic politics and the imaginative: intangibility and critique’. History and Anthropology, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1080/02757206.2025.2460787

This introduction examines the theoretical and methodological challenges of studying imaginative elements in Islamic politics while proposing new frameworks for understanding intangible realms in political formation. Moving beyond traditional approac... Read More about Introduction to ‘Islamic politics and the imaginative: intangibility and critique’.

Kārwān’s Talking Forest: Materiality, Poetic Imagination, and the Metaphysics of War Violence (2024)
Journal Article
Caron, J. (online). Kārwān’s Talking Forest: Materiality, Poetic Imagination, and the Metaphysics of War Violence. History and Anthropology, https://doi.org/10.1080/02757206.2024.2435662

Pir Muhammad Karwan’s 2000 poetry collection Da Xāperey Werghowey traces a history of materiality, emotion, and imagination across human-environmental systems as they are militarized over twenty years in Afghanistan. At the same as it is a unique nar... Read More about Kārwān’s Talking Forest: Materiality, Poetic Imagination, and the Metaphysics of War Violence.

Hydro-heritage for healing? Examining the gendered experience of water in post-conflict Swat, Pakistan (2023)
Journal Article
Mustafa, D., Khan, M. S., De Nardi, H., Caron, J., Naz, A., Shinwari, M., & Gul, A. (2024). Hydro-heritage for healing? Examining the gendered experience of water in post-conflict Swat, Pakistan. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 7(2), 498-516. https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486231203854

Water has been formulated as a resource or a hazard within water resources geography. We propose that reframing of water as hydro-heritage opens up richer analytical possibilities for examining the pluriverses and multiple ontologies that animate gen... Read More about Hydro-heritage for healing? Examining the gendered experience of water in post-conflict Swat, Pakistan.

Iranian Identity and Imperial State Formation ca. 1720–1750 (2023)
Thesis
Parsa, M. A. H. Iranian Identity and Imperial State Formation ca. 1720–1750. (Thesis). SOAS University of London

The study argues that in the eighteenth century, for the first time since the fall of the Sāsānids in late antiquity, the ideology of the imperial state in Iran came to be dominated by discourses on Iranian identity. A collective Iranian identity eme... Read More about Iranian Identity and Imperial State Formation ca. 1720–1750.

Writing War, and the Politics of Poetic Conversation (2022)
Journal Article
Caron, J., & Khan, S. (2022). Writing War, and the Politics of Poetic Conversation. Critical Asian Studies, 54(2), 149-170. https://doi.org/10.1080/14672715.2022.2030776

This article’s premise is that war is ontological devastation, and that this opens up questions as to how to write about it. It contends that even critiques of war, whether critical-geopolitical analyses of global structures or ethnographies of the e... Read More about Writing War, and the Politics of Poetic Conversation.

The Interface Between Literature and Ideology in Post-Independence India: Hindi Progressive Novels of the 1950s (2022)
Thesis
Ren, X. The Interface Between Literature and Ideology in Post-Independence India: Hindi Progressive Novels of the 1950s. (Thesis). SOAS University of London

This thesis studies Hindi Progressive novels of the 1950s and explores different ways of how literature reflects and/or produces a set of recognized ideas or principles that constitute ‘progressivism’ in the context of Hindi literature. Though the Al... Read More about The Interface Between Literature and Ideology in Post-Independence India: Hindi Progressive Novels of the 1950s.

On marginality and overcoming: Narrative, memory and identity among British Hazaras (2020)
Thesis
Khan, R. L. On marginality and overcoming: Narrative, memory and identity among British Hazaras. (Thesis). SOAS University of London

The purpose of this research has been to examine narrative and identity among the Hazara community in England and Hazara transnational connections. Within this thesis I study two Hazara-specific narratives: one on ‘marginality’ and the other about ‘o... Read More about On marginality and overcoming: Narrative, memory and identity among British Hazaras.

Pashto Border Literature as Geopolitical Knowledge (2018)
Journal Article
Caron, J. (2019). Pashto Border Literature as Geopolitical Knowledge. Geopolitics, 24(2), 444-461. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2018.1549035

In this article I read a selection of Pashto literatures as critical thought about geopolitics. Drawing on Michael Shapiro’s concept of aesthetic subjects, as well as on border theory, I argue that the authors, the content, and the literary networks... Read More about Pashto Border Literature as Geopolitical Knowledge.

Borderland Historiography in Pakistan (2016)
Journal Article
Caron, J. (2016). Borderland Historiography in Pakistan. South Asian History and Culture, 7(4), 327-345. https://doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2016.1223716

In this article I survey historical writing related to the twentieth-century Afghan-Pakistan frontier, particularly Pashtun-majority locations in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa: the former Northwest Frontier Province. I focus on works that help conceptualize his... Read More about Borderland Historiography in Pakistan.

Sufism and Liberation across the Indo-Afghan Border: 1880-1928 (2016)
Journal Article
Caron, J. Sufism and Liberation across the Indo-Afghan Border: 1880-1928. South Asian History and Culture, 7(2), 135-154. https://doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2016.1143667

How do we understand links between sufism and pro-egalitarian revolutionary activism in the early twentieth century; and how did upland compositions of self and community help constitute revolutionary activism in South Asia more broadly? Using Pashto... Read More about Sufism and Liberation across the Indo-Afghan Border: 1880-1928.

Popular Culture, Radical Egalitarianism, and Formations of Muslim Selfhood in South Asia (2016)
Journal Article
Caron, J., & Dasgupta, A. Popular Culture, Radical Egalitarianism, and Formations of Muslim Selfhood in South Asia. South Asian History and Culture, 7(2), 107-116. https://doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2016.1143666

In early twentieth century leftist politics on the geographical fringes of South Asia, Islam played a major role. Were activists in these movements leftist despite their understandings of Islam, or because of them? This essay introduces the project r... Read More about Popular Culture, Radical Egalitarianism, and Formations of Muslim Selfhood in South Asia.

Activism, knowledge and publishing: some views from Pakistan and Afghanistan (2015)
Journal Article
Caron, J., & Ahmad, M. (2015). Activism, knowledge and publishing: some views from Pakistan and Afghanistan. South Asian History and Culture, 7(1), 30-36. https://doi.org/10.1080/19472498.2015.1109305

How can academic publishers support the study of regions and fields that receive comparatively little attention within South Asia-related humanities and social scuiiences? Approaching this question with regard to Pakistan and Afghanistan opens a seri... Read More about Activism, knowledge and publishing: some views from Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Taliban, Real and Imagined (2012)
Book Chapter
Caron, J. (2012). Taliban, Real and Imagined. In S. Bashir, & R. D. Crews (Eds.), Under the Drones: Modern Lives in the Afghanistan-Pakistan Borderlands. Harvard University Press