Crossing Eurasia: trans-regional Afghan trading networks in China and beyond

Abstract

An expanding body of literature in the field of Central Asian studies has brought attention to the problems of considering the region's complex dynamics through the lens of its nation-states. Comparatively less attention has been paid to the role played by trans-regional circulations in connecting parts of Central Asia to the wider world. This paper situates ethnographic work on trans-regional networks of Afghan traders in China, Central Asia, Russia, Ukraine and the UK in relation to the literature on trans-regional connections and circulation societies. Ethnographically it demonstrates the multi-polar nature of these trans-regional networks, and the importance of trading nodes, especially the Chinese city of Yiwu, to their formation and ongoing vitality.

Keywords:

• Yiwu
• trans-regional networks
• Eurasia
• Afghanistan
• trade

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Diana Ibañez-Tirado, David Henig and two anonymous journal referees for their constructive and critical comments made on earlier versions of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Traders in comparable trans-regional contexts also inhabit create cultural worlds that demonstrate their adeptness at ‘interethnic cooperation’ (Kahn 2008, 273–273; cf. Marsden and Ibañez-Tirado 2015).

2. On Uyghur migration in China, see Hess (2009); on Central Asia's Uyghur communities, see Bellér-Hann (2007).

3. Following anthropological convention, pseudonyms are used throughout the text.

4. On traders’ understandings of the well-lived life, see Marsden (2015a).

5. On 28 November 2014 a cargo train left Yiwu for Madrid, arriving 21 days later (Ridley 2014).

6. On food's significance for Afghan migrant identity, see Monsutti (2010).

7. Afghans bring semiprecious stones into China from Afghanistan, Pakistan and other Asian nodes of the gem trade, such as Bangkok in Thailand.

Additional information

Funding

The fieldwork on which this article is based in China (February 2012–May 2012) and the former Soviet Union (2008–14) would not have been possible without a grant awarded by the Leverhulme Trust, entitled ‘Islam, Trade and Citizenship on the Frontiers of South and Central Asia’.