This webcast introduces the spectacle of buzkashi in which dozens, sometimes hundreds of horsemen struggle for control of a headless calf across the steppes of northern Afghanistan. Once the pastime of Mongol hordes, by the 1970s buzkashi had become Afghanistan’s signature game. Since then it has survived Soviet attacks, Taliban suppression efforts, and post-2001 attempts at cultural modernization. Anthropologist Whitney Azoy, who lived the game in pre-war years and has followed it ever since, takes us inside this powerful and enduring expression of Central Asian popular culture.

This webcast introduces the online course:
Online Course «Buzkashi: Anthropology, Afghanistan, and the Wildest Game in the World»

Welcome remarks:
Javier Parrondo, Director General of Casa Asia.

Speaker:
Dr. Whitney Azoy. Scholar, author, and master story-teller, Whitney Azoy has studied and chronicled buzkashi for the past half century. His Buzkashi: Game and Power in Afghanistan, the first full-length ethnography of play ever written, has been updated in three English editions and now is available in Spanish translation. Restricted by Covid-19 to his shelf-load of field notes, he has recently published A Buzkashi Reader with ten extended stories based on first-hand experiences with the game. A former U.S. diplomat, four-time Fulbright Scholar, and retired director of the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies in Kabul, Dr. Azoy will conduct this webcast from Lanzarote in Spain’s Canary Islands.

The webcast will be in English.

Follow the event live on this page: