Pashto poetry and drones: the necromaniac mutations of tapey

The material consequences of the US-led “war on terror” in Pakistan are always counted statistical terms, that is, number casualties drone strikes or suicide bombings. Little attention, however, is paid to local public imagination know how ordinary people consume this everyday destruction and what kind cultural production it ensures shapes inspires their imagination. In study, therefore, we discuss way systemic violence expression reinforce each other such an uneasy configuration depicts pain injury affected by global war. We examine a purposive sample Pashto tapey--anonymous couplets attributed Pashtun women conventionally reflecting war, valour, grief, longing, love--to gain insight into folk literature engages militarized violence, embraces political ideological challenges reveals hidden power contestation between actual militarization symbolic representation. A close reading these tapey life not only subjected rule death, Mbembe calls, “necropolitics” but create its own necrospace enunciative practices, thus reinforcing militarised sphere.