Jill Kornetsky with data from “Anonymous” at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School

Mapping Ethnicity in Afghanistan:Visualizing Cultural Complexity

Ethnicity in AfghanistanGoogle Image Results – Simple, Right?

Its really a much more complicated picture…• Afghanistan’s tribal culture is a complex web of kin relations, tribal alliances, subtribes, clans, and various other divisions.

• The following data represents a cultural survey of Afghanistan, mapping ethnicity, provided by an anonymous source within the United States Military graduate school system.

• Definitions for these subdivisions vary by region, but are meant to represent further subdivisions of clans and tribes – the following maps are ordered from largest definition to groups branching off of the previous levels.

• An informal conversation with five Afghans representing three provinces indicates that this data, while relatively accurate and complex can still be contested, and provides a lively platform for discussion of ethnic conflict in Afghanistan.

Ethnic Groups

Supertribes

Tribes

Clans

Divisions

Subdivisions

Sections

And when we put it all together…