This book is the result of a field research carried out by the author among a community of agriculturists in what was till recently the uttermost part of Southern Pakistani Balochistan. It deals with themes such as ways of living and representing spaces, constructing memory, the heritage of a form of social stratification which shaped community relationships in the last three centuries, and, last but not least, the insurgence of nationalism. Furthermore, the book puts forward some theoretical proposals about the translation of cultural «models», throughout a constant comparison between the author’s and his interlocutors’, alternating ethnographic «descriptions» with reflexive arguments. Notwithstanding its remoteness, Balochistan is today at the confluence of forces which reflect both local and «global» logics, pushing this land, once only visited by few adventurous travelers, in the focus of international interests which could impinge on political evolution of this sensitive area straddling South Asia and Middle East.

Ugo E. M. Fabietti is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Milan Bicocca and Director of the PhD Programme in Anthropology. He carried out research in Arabia (1979-1980) and Pakistani Balochistan (1986-1994), and is the author, among other articles and books, of Antropologia culturale. L’esperienza e l’interpretazione (Rome, 1999) which focuses on the main epistemological topics of anthropology.

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