Political Power, Affine Kinship Structures And Elite Politics: A Case Study Of District Nowshera, KP, Pakistan.

Abstract

This study is significant for the fact that unlike consanguine kinship relations, this research mainly focuses on the affine kinship structures and their inter-relationship with the consolidation of political power by the political elite in the locale. While agreeing with Armytage, who argues that political elite is “not a distinct class separate from bureaucracy and military” (2016, p.108), I will focus on the affine marital ties that bind political elites together and extend their political power. Thus, the political outlook of KP is being looked through the lens of political kinship networks by adopting ethnographic case study analysis. Out of a grand multi cited ethnographic locales, a political elite family in district Nowshera is one case study that will be focused in this paper. The main objective of this research is to understand and analyze the local affine kinship or marital structure and its relationship with the extension and consolidation of political power that may give resilience and robustness to the fragile political system by one way or another. Finally, this research is held under the umbrella of structural functionalist paradigm of Claude Levi-Strauss along with the theoretical consideration of C. Wright Mills’ Elite Theory.