The bounds of identity: the Goldsmid mission and the delineation of the Perso–Afghan border in the nineteenth century

B. D. Hopkins

Journal of Global History, 2007, vol. 2, issue 2, 233-254

Abstract: This article examines boundary disputes between Qajar Persia and the emerging state of Afghanistan in the nineteenth century. It argues that disputes between these two Islamic polities were central to the creation of modern states through the territorialization of political identity, in the form of border delineation. The demarcation of territorial boundaries represented the ‘indigenization’ of Western norms of statehood. Indigenous political actors increasingly understood and envisaged their political communities in terms of territorial states, reinterpreting and redeploying European political concepts in indigenous spaces. The Perso-Afghan case exemplifies the assimilation of ideas of political territoriality, central to the construction of a modern state-based international order, in Muslim regions outside direct colonial control.

Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:jglhis:v:2:y:2007:i:02:p:233-254_00

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Global History from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().