An Imaginary Anthropology: The Western Perception Of Afghanistan

Gilles Dorronsoro is professor of Political Sciences at the University Paris 1-Sorbonne. He is an expert on Afghanistan, Turkey, and South Asia. His research focuses on security and political development in Afghanistan, particularly the role of the International Security Assistance Force, the necessary steps for a viable government in Kabul, and the conditions necessary for withdrawal scenarios. Previously, he had been detached to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace where he is still a non resident scholar. He taught at the Institute of Political Studies of Rennes. He also served as the scientific coordinator at the French Institute of Anatolian Studies in Istanbul, Turkey. He is the co-founder and editor of South Asian Multidisciplinary Academic Journal and the European Journal of Turkish Studies. He is the author of Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to the Present (Columbia University Press, 2005), and La rvolution afghane, des communistes aux Taleban (Karthala Publishers 2000), and editor of La Turquie conteste. Rgime scuritaire et mobilisations sociales (Editions du CNRS, 2005). He recently published an article entitled Waiting for the Taliban in Afghanistan, available at: https://www.carnegieendowment.org/2012/09/20/waiting-for-taliban-in-afghanistan/dvkr