Paper short abstract:

Focussing on women's everyday exchange (badal) during war and reconstruction - I argue these repetitive practises establish connectivity across distances and differences.

Paper long abstract:

The unifying theme of this paper is Afghan women's creative contribution to re-constructing of social relations during exile and repatriation. Using ethnography about the construction of humanitarian assistance at different sites in Afghanistan during the 30 years of war, I discuss the political repercussions of different actors use of women as embodied signs in local and translocal reconstruction processes. Focussing on women's everyday exchange (badal) during war and reconstruction - I explore how these practises entered inter- connexion systems of different scales that stretches beyond the particular local field sites. The connectivity created across distances created exemplars of what Appadurai calls "the production of Locality"