Voices of freedom
- 1 June 2005
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Ethnography
- Vol. 6 (2) , 159-181
- https://doi.org/10.1177/1466138105057547
Abstract
This article examines the creative labour of a group of Afghan radio soap opera writers scripting a popular social realist BBC World Service radio drama for broadcast in Afghanistan. Analysis centres on struggles over the political representation of the Taliban within the soap opera between 1996-8, a period in which they dominated politically and militarily. A tension is revealed in analysis between the individual political beliefs of writers and the simultaneous need to ‘realistically’ represent Afghan social and political lives. Production accommodations resulted in the active portrayal of a nostalgic and traditional vision of Afghanistan. It is suggested that these representations ultimately denied a conservative Taliban presence within the soap opera, the portrayal of tradition kept alive for these writers an acceptable sense of a future that held more liberal possibilities than Taliban alternatives.Keywords
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