Publications

We are writing this not only because we both love Eidak (also spelled Idak), but because it continues to unsettle the way North Waziristan is usually described (Tohid, 2014). For many, the region’s story begins and ends with militancy, military operations and displacement (Makki, Khan & Akash, 2021; Shakirullah et al., 2020). The village of Eidak, however—with its refusal to be overrun, its long memory of self-reliance and its layered experiments in civic life—does not fit that script. Our account brings together long-term field research conducted in the region since 2019 and the lived experience of one of us as a lifelong resident of Eidak. We have seen and heard enough to know that in the midst of violence and uncertainty, hope here is neither sentimental nor naïve; it is strategic, built choice by choice, decade after decade. And, so, we share the story of Eidak—more accurately, of its people—to present an anomaly: an island of relative peace in the midst of war and chaos in North Waziristan, Pakistan.

Read the full blog article here.