“We Are Here to Stay” – Pashtun Migrants in the Northern Areas of Pakistan

Abstract

I highly recommend MatthiasWeinreich's incisive book on the entrepreneurial migrations and settlements of Pashto-speaking peoples or Pashtuns from Western Pakistan, Afghanistan and other regions to the Northern Areas of Pakistan since the midnineteenth century to the mid-1990s. Arguably, it constitutes the first ‘comprehensive' treatment of "Pashtun migration in the Northern Areas" (p. 7), and thus, a single-case study has been necessary to "fill this gap" in empirical knowledge (p. 7).Weinreich's findings can contribute to an increased insight about migrant behaviour. Yet-and that is my onlymajor criticism-Weinreich has not put his research in any comparative or theoretical context. (First paragraph.)