 
ROBERT L. CANFIELD Professor, Sociocultural Anthropology Ph.D., University of Michigan, 1971 314-935-5282 Website Publication List canfrobt@wustl.edu |
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ROBERT L. CANFIELD Professor, Sociocultural Anthropology Ph.D., University of Michigan, 1971 314-935-5282 Website Publication List canfrobt@wustl.edu |
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My early research was the spatial conditions that shaped the alignment of local factions and coalitions in the Hazarajat of Afghanistan. But because Islamic categories provided the terms of political identification in this area, I later began working on Islam as the idiom of personal life and political affairs. I was engaged in this research when the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan deflected my attention to the Afghanistan War. During this period I wrote mainly about the Islamic orientation that informed the Afghan peoples' responses to the invasion and the structural forms through which they organized their resistance. I also wrote on the long-term geopolitical implications of the war.
Since the early 1980's, I have been working on the Islamic culture of the Central Asian region, notably to understand how Islamic idioms have taken root in the region to become the cultural forms through which individual experience has been understood and collective action justified and organized. I edited a book on the culture history of the eastern "Turko-Persian" Islamic world, and am co-editing a book on social affairs in Greater Central Asia.
I have recently supervised the following dissertations: The Cultural Construction of Class in the Pelion of Greece , and The Drama of the Passion: Symbolism, Sentiment and Reality in Popayan , Colombia , The Historical Development of Japanese Cultural Anthropology - 1868-1950.
For more information see the overview of the department's research in sociocultural anthropology.
Anthropology and the Modern World, The Works and Ideas of Great Anthropologists, Greater Central Asia in Crisis
Canfield, Robert L.
2008 Fraternity, power, and time in Central Asia. For the volume, A Decade of the Taliban, 1994-2004, Robert Crews and Amin Tarzi, eds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.
2007 [On intersubjective forms, consciousness, intention, and agency: Where I thought we were.] Comment on an article by Nigel Rapport, Current Anthropology 48(2): 269-270. “Continuing Issues in the New Central Asia.” For the volume, Le monde turco-iranien en question: définition, confins, spécificités. Edited by Muhammad-Reza Djalili, Alessandro Monsutti, Anna Neubauer. Geneva: L’Institut Universitaire d’études du Développement.
2007 Recollections of a Hazara wedding in the 1930s. In: Jeff Sahadeo and Russell Zanca (ed), Every Life in Central Asia. Bloomington: Indiana University. Pp 45-57.
2007 Trouble in Birgilich. In: Jeff Sahadeo and Russell Zanca (ed), Everyday Life in Central Asia. Bloomington: Indiana University. Pp 58-65.
2006 Risks of Litigation. International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 38: 345-347.
2004 Karzai, Hamed. Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa, 2nd edition. New York: Macmillan.
2004 New Trends among the Hazaras: From "The Amity of Wolves" to "The Practice of Brotherhood". Iranian Studies 37(2): 241-262.
2004 Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa, 2nd edition. New York: Macmillan. [Original by Harry S. Bradsher with a minor addition by me.]
2004 Review article on Searching for Saleem by Farooka Gauhari, Zoya’s Story by Zoya, Veiled Courage by Cheryl Benard, and The Sewing Circles of Heart by Christina Lamb, with an Appendix on other works on women in Afghanistan. Iranian Studies 37(2): 323-333.
2004 A Commentary on Jamil Hanifi’s Review. American Anthropologist vol 106 (4): 786-787.
2003 Symbol and Sentiment in Motivated Action. In: Tom Headland, MaryRuth Wise and Ruth Brend (eds), Language and Life: Essays in Memory of Kenneth L. Pike. Dallas: SIL International. Pp 343-358.
