Offering one of the first long-term on-the-ground ethnographies of Afghanistan since the arrival of allied forces in 2001, Kabul Carnival explores the contradictions, ambiguities, and unintended effects of the emancipatory projects designed for Afghan women and imposed by the international community.

Prologue: "If Only You Were Born a Boy"
Introduction: Carnival of (Post)War
PART I. PHANTOM STATE BUILDING
Chapter 1. Queen Soraya's Portrait
Chapter 2. National Women's Machinery: Coaching Lives in the Ministry of Women's Affairs #
Chapter 3. Public and Private Faces of Gender (In)Justice
PART II. BODIES OF RESISTANCE
Chapter 4. Moral Panics, Indian Soaps, and Cosmetics: Writing the Nation on Women's Bodies #
Chapter 5. Strategic Decoration: Dissimulation, Performance, and Agency in an Islamic Public Space
Chapter 6. Poetic Jihad: Narratives of Martyrdom, Suicide, and Suffering Among Afghan Women
Conclusion: The Carnival Continues
Chronology
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments