Knowing Afghanistan: interveners’ knowledge production in the in-between

What the paper says

Abstract This article advances a sociological analysis of the knowledge production about peacebuilding in an intervening country. Departing from Bourdieusian field theory, I analyse the production of knowledge about Afghanistan in German think tanks and academia, combining biographical data of Afghanistan experts, in-depth interviews with 18 such experts, and a bibliographic review. The analysis reveals that this knowledge production on Afghanistan in Germany occurs in an interstitial field, a space located between and dependent on multiple fields. I investigate the effects of this structuration of knowledge production on its outcome. First, topical (security) knowledge is more likely to be rewarded rather than deep country-specific knowledge. Second, the logics of policy orientation reward (critical) knowledge that enables the implementation of existing policies rather than questioning the political project of the intervention overall. The article highlights the need to dissect the social conditions of knowledge production about peacebuilding in the metropole, rather than focusing exclusively on the site of intervention, to apprehend and transform practices of peacebuilding.