Journey into paradise: Tajik representations of Afghan Badakhshan

Abstract

In 2003, a Tajik film crew was permitted to cross the tightly controlled border into Afghan Badakhshan in order to film scenes for a documentary entitled Sacred Traditions in Sacred Places. Although official Tajik state policies and international non-governmental organizations have increasingly stressed freer movement and greater connectivity between the two sides, this ‘prescribed community’ strongly contrasts with the lived experience of Tajik Badakhshanis. This article explores narratives of nostalgia and dissonance reflected in the film itself and recounted by the film crew in interviews during film production and screening. Engaging with existing work on the interpretation and temporalization of space and post-Soviet nostalgias, I claim that this particular nostalgia emerges in response to new configurations of power and newly imposed pressures valuing cross-border movement. In this case, nostalgia serves as an affective resource helping Tajik Badakhshanis understand and manage daily life and the new potential for border crossing in a highly regulated border zone.