Abstract
Violence has a long history in the Afghan context and identity, but there is a noticeable absence of deeper analysis into its origins, objectives and logic. When studying the country’s history under the lens of Manuel Castells’ network theory, it emerges that Afghanistan’s situation is not unique or caused by the factors that exist only in the Afghan context. Instead, the country’s predicament is closely related to an institutionalisation of violence, as it has become the only form of communication used within social networks. Following the Second World War, domestic attempts to modernise the country triggered a backlash that has provided a small and constantly changing number of key individuals with the ability to dominate the discourse. Instead of trying to solve challenges, conflicts and grievances within the society with the aim of ending the violence in the country, social networks have to be reprogrammed in order to introduce non-violent forms of communication and identity formation to the country.
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Notes
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Please see PowerPoint diagram in Bumiller, Elizabeth. (2010) We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/world/27powerpoint.html?_r=1 Last accessed: 27 June 2016.
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Kramer, C.R. (2017). Afghanistan. In: Network Theory and Violent Conflicts. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41393-8_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41393-8_6
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