This talk discusses the presence of Muslim humanitarians in the borderlands of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan, critically examining some of the diverse factors that inform the ways in which certain organisations manage to continuously expand their reach and influence over various fields of society, from infrastructure, economy, and education to politics, religious practice, the state and NGOs, while others remain limited to smaller local contexts. Exploring the closely connected fields of humanitarianism, development and Muslim charity it presents discussions of the diverse ideals and forms of institutional practice involved in projects to transform the region’s social, economic and political fabric.

Dr Till Mostowlansky is Ambizione Research Fellow at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology, The Graduate Institute Geneva (IHEID) and a Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. Before joining the IHEID he worked at the University of Bern, the National University of Singapore and The University of Hong Kong. He has published widely on humanitarianism, development, infrastructure and Islam and is the author of Azan on the Moon: Entangling Modernity along Tajikistan’s Pamir Highway (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017). 

(Seminars start at 5.00 p.m.)