Dr Magnus Marsden
BA PHD(CANTAB)
Overview
Department of Anthropology and Sociology
Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology with reference to South and Central Asia
Centre of South Asian Studies
Member, Centre of South Asian Studies
Centre of Contemporary Central Asia & the Caucasus
Member, Centre of Contemporary Central Asia and the Caucasus
Centre for Palestine Studies (CPS)
Member
- Name:
- Dr Magnus Marsden
- Email address:
- mm101@soas.ac.uk
- Telephone:
- +44 (0)20 7898 4491
- Fax:
- +44 (0)20 7898 4699
- Address:
- SOAS, University of London
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG - Building:
- Russell Square: College Buildings
- Office No:
- 588
- On Sabbatical:
- Research Leave 2012-13
Biography
Since 1995 I have been conducting ethnographic research in Chitral – a large and mountainous region in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province, which shares a very long border with Afghanistan, and, in places, is only separated by 25 miles of Afghan territory from the post-Soviet Muslim-majority state of Tajikistan. Chitral is largely populated by Khowar-speaking Chitralis who identify themselves as being either Sunni or Shi’a Ismai’li Muslims. My ethnographic work in Chitral has focusef on the ways in which village and small town Muslimsin the region have responded to the growing influence of reform-minded forms of Islam in the region, including those associated with the Taliban.
My book, Living Islam: Muslim religious experience in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier (Cambridge, 2005), and a series of other publications, explores the ways in which Chitralis set to the task of ‘being Muslim’ in this world of political uncertainty and transformation. It does so through a consideration of the role played by combined intellectual and emotional processes in religious experience and notions of morality. By examining these domains of Chitrali Muslim life, I also contribute to wider debates in anthropology, concerning the study of morality, personhood, ethics and emotion, the life of the mind, the politicization of religion, as well as the wider religious and political significance of music and performance.
Teaching
Courses Taught
- Comparative Study of Islam: Anthropological Perspectives (A)
- Comparative Study of Islam: Anthropological Perspectives A (Masters)
- Ethnography of a Selected Region - Near and Middle East
PhD Students supervised
- Ayaz Qureshi, Pakistan's response towards HIV/AIDS: institutional complexity and the politics of policy
- Luigi Achilli, When the political bores: the everyday practice of avoiding, concealing, and restaging the political in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan
- Mahzad Madeleine Essalat,
- Maureen Pritchard,
- Mr Sahil Khan Warsi, Cultivating Hambastagi and Hamdardi: Personhood and Relatedness among Afghans in India (Working Title)
I am interested in supervising students seeking to undertake anthropological fieldwork in Pakistan, Central Asia and the Middle East as well as in wider questions concerning the anthropology of religion (especially Islam), the interaction between religious and political transformations within and beyond South Asia and the Muslim world, as well as the study of transnational identity formations.
Research
Since the publication of Living Islam I have been expanding my interests, both ethnographically and conceptually. During the years my fieldwork in Chitral, I have come to know many men from Afghanistan and Tajikistan – they were refugees, agricultural labourers, builders, and owned bakery and butcher shops in Chitral’s villages and small towns. In the wake of the events of September 11th, many of these men and their families have returned to their ‘home’ countries – sometimes after having lived for as long as three decades in Chitral. Over the past two years, I’ve been conducting research in the regions of Tajikistan and Afghanistan from where these men came, as well as to the cities in which many of them are now living (Kabul, Mazar-e Sharif, Kunduz and Dushanbe).
During the course of these visits, I’ve met many people I knew in Chitral as refugees and found that they continue to live mobile lives - often making return visits to Chitral where they have family and business interests and also rich networks of Chitrali friends and sometimes kin. Through extensive interviews, developing my already existing networks with people in the region, and embarking on long-distance journeys with these men and their families within and beyond Afghanistan and Tajikistan, I’ve started to build up a sense of the complicated trajectories that their lives have taken over the past thirty years.
I’m interested in the types of insights these trajectories afford into understanding the tactics that people in the region deploy in order to move between the starkly discontinuous yet nevertheless connected spaces that make-up the transregional setting in which they live. Besides contributing to the understanding of Muslim life in Afghanistan and Tajikistan, I also aim to contribute to wider anthropological debates concerning the after effects of colonialism and the ethnographic exploration of the ways in which people experience, understand and interact with complex and discontinuous political spaces. I am also addressing a range of more methodological issues. These include the possibilities and constraints of inter-disciplinary work bringing together anthropologists and historians, as well as forms of ethnographic fieldwork that combine both long-term fieldwork and expertise in one place with what is now widely referred to as ‘multi-sited’ ethnography.
Expertise
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For all press and media enquiries please call +44 (0)20 7898 4956/4135 or email comms@soas.ac.uk
Available for
- TV
- Radio
- Press
- Briefings
- Special Study Programmes
- Short Term Consultancy
- Long Term Consultancy
Regional Expertise
- South Asia
Country Expertise
- Afghanistan
- Pakistan
- Tajikistan
Languages
Publications
Authored Books
Marsden, Magnus and Hopkins, Benjamin (2012) Fragments of the Afghan Frontier. London: Hurst; New York: Columbia.
Marsden, Magnus (2005) Living Islam: Muslim religious experience in Pakistan's North West Frontier. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Edited Books
Marsden, Magnus and Retsikas , Kostas, eds. (2012) Articulating Islam: Anthropological Approaches to Muslim Worlds. Dordecht: Springer. (Muslims in Global Societies Series)
Marsden, Magnus and Hopkins, Benjamin, eds. (2012) Beyond Swat: History, Society and Economy along the Afghanistan-Pakistan Frontier. London: Hurst and Co/Columbia University Press. (Forthcoming)
Marsden, Magnus and Khan, Ali, eds. (2011) Islam and society in Pakistan: anthropological perspectives. Karachi: Oxford University Press.
Book Chapters
Marsden, Magnus and Hopkins, B.D. (2013) 'Rethinking Swat: Militancy and Modernity along the Afghanistan-Pakistan Frontier.' In: Beyond Swat: History, Society and Economy along the Afghanistan-Pakistan Frontier. Hurst/Columbia University Press. (In Press)
Marsden, Magnus (2013) 'Trade and Traders in Afghanistan.' In: Marsden, Magnus and Hopkins, Benjamin, (eds.), Beyond Swat: History, Society and Economy Along the Afghanistan-Pakistan Frontier. Hurst/Columbia University Press. (In Press)
Marsden, Magnus and Retsikas , Kostas (2012) 'Introduction: Articulating Islam.' In: Articulating Islam: Anthropological Approaches to Muslim Worlds. Dordecht: Springer. (Muslims in Global Societies Series)
Marsden, Magnus (2012) 'Anthropological Fieldwork in Afghanistan and Pakistan - A Comparisson.' In: Marsden, Magnus and Retsikas , Kostas, (eds.), Articulating Islam: Anthropological Approaches to Muslim Worlds. Springer.
Marsden, Magnus (2012) 'Southwest and Central Asia: Comparisson, Integration or Beyond?' In: Fardon , Richard, (ed.), The Sage Handbook of Social Anthropology. Sage.
Marsden, Magnus (2012) 'Deobandi Islam.' In: Chaterjee, Joya and Washbrook, David, (eds.), Routledge Handbook of South Asian Diaspora. Routledge.
Marsden, Magnus (2012) 'Responding to the Taliban: Comparative Perspectives from Northern Afghanistan and Pakistan.' In: Deol, Jeevan and Kazmi , Zaheer, (eds.), Contextualising Jihadi Thought. Hurst and Co.
Marsden, Magnus (2011) 'Introduction: Anthropology, Islam and Pakistan.' In: Marsden, Magnus and Khan, Ali, (eds.), Islam and Society in Pakistan: Anthropological Perspectives. Karachi: Oxford University Press, xi-xxxiv.
Marsden, Magnus (2010) 'Village cosmopolitans, urban-rural networks and the post-cosmopolitan city in Tajikistan.' In: A Post-Cosmopolitan City? Berghahn Books. (Forthcoming)
Marsden, Magnus (2010) 'Muslim village intellectuals: the life of the mind in northern Pakistan.' In: Mines, Diane and Lamb, Sarah, (eds.), Everyday life in South Asia. Second Edition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 263-275.
Marsden, Magnus (2010) 'Possession in an Islamist Valley: Spirits, Islamists and Love in Northern Pakistan.' In: Ferrari, Fabrizio M., (ed.), Health and Religious Rituals in South Asia: Disease, Possession and Healing. New York: Routledge, pp. 35-47. (Routledge South Asian Religion Series)
Humphrey, C. and Skvirskaya, V. and Marsden, Magnus (2008) 'Cosmopolitanism and the city: interaction and coexistence in Bukhara.' In: Mayaram, S., (ed.), The Other Global City. New York: Routledge.
Articles
Marsden, Magnus (2012) 'Fatal Embrace: trading in hospitality on the frontiers of South and Central Asia.' Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 18 (s1). pp. 117-130.
Marsden, Magnus and Hopkins, Benjamin (2011) 'Ten Years in, Afghan Myths Live On.' New York Times .
Marsden, Magnus (2011) 'Militante Kosmopolitter.' Klassekampen .
Marsden, Magnus (2009) 'Talking the talk: Debating debate in northern Afghanistan.' Anthropology Today, 25 (2). pp. 20-24.
Marsden, Magnus (2009) 'Kosmopolitisme aan de Pakistaanse grens.' Een keuze uit 10 jaar ISIM review = Booklet '10 Years ISIM Review' .
Marsden, Magnus (2009) 'A tour not so grand: mobile Muslims in northern Pakistan.' Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 15 (1). pp. 57-75. (Forthcoming)
Marsden, Magnus (2008) 'Women, politics and Islamism in northern Pakistan.' Modern Asian Studies, 42 (2/3). pp. 405-429.
Marsden, Magnus (2008) 'Muslim cosmopolitans? Transnational Life in northern Pakistan.' Journal of Asian Studies, 67 (1). pp. 213-248.
Marsden, Magnus (2008) 'Lords of a Dubai Labour Camp: Pakistani migrants in the Gulf.' International Institute for Asian Studies Newsletter (49). pp. 5-6.
Marsden, Magnus (2007) 'All-Male Sonic Gatherings, Islamic Reform, and Masculinity in Northern Pakistan.' American Ethnologist, 34 (3). pp. 473-490.
Marsden, Magnus (2007) 'Actually existing cosmopolitanism on Pakistan’s Afghan Frontier.' Review of the Institute of the Modern Muslim World .
Marsden, Magnus (2007) 'Love and elopement in northern Pakistan.' Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 13 (1). pp. 91-108.
Marsden, Magnus (2007) 'Islam, emotion and authority in northern Pakistan.' Contributions to Indian Sociology, 41 (1). pp. 41-80.
Marsden, Magnus (2007) 'Music, masculinity, Islam: ‘illicit pleasure’ and ‘Islamic reform’ in Northern Pakistan.' American Ethnologist, 34 (3). pp. 473-490.
Marsden, Magnus (2005) 'Muslim village intellectuals: the life of the mind in northern Pakistan.' Anthropology Today, 21 (1). pp. 10-15.
Marsden, Magnus (2005) 'Mullahs, Migrants and Murids: New Developments in the Study of Pakistan A Review Article.' Modern Asian Studies, 39 (4). pp. 987-1010.
Marsden, Magnus (2002) 'Mahfils and musicians: new Muslims in Chitral Town, northern Pakistan.' Centre of South Asian Studies Occasional Paper . pp. 1-46.
Monographs
Marsden, Magnus (2011) Mobile Life in Crossroads Asia. Working Paper.
Marsden, Magnus (2010) Opportunities and constraints in Central and South Asian trade flows: perspectives from Afghan traders in Tajikistan. Project Report. Norwegian Institute of International Affairs.
Book Reviews
Marsden, Magnus (2009) 'Review of 'In Amma's Healing Room: gender and vernacular Islam in South India' by Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger.' The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 15 (1). pp. 212-213.
Marsden, Magnus (2009) '"Review of Zenana: Everyday Peace in a Karachi Apartment Building' by Laura A. Ring.' Modern Asian Studies .
Marsden, Magnus (2009) 'Review of 'Islam and the prayer economy. History and authority in a Malian town' by Benjamin Soares.' Social Anthropology, 17 (4). pp. 508-510.
Marsden, Magnus (2008) 'Book review of Reid, Anthony & Michael Gilsenan eds., 'Islamic Legitimacy in a Plural Asia'.' The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 14 (4). pp. 928-929.
