Ashley Jackson

You guys: I defended my PhD Friday. Grateful it went ahead (v Skype) - and unbelievably grateful it's finally *done* Inspired by @dbyman & @azelin I thought I’d tweet out some pieces/authors that made thesis thinking/writing worthwhile, bearable and occasionally even fun

In solitary depths of PhDing, there was no greater relief than finding something that pointed the way out of some conundrum or dark hole I was stuck in I know the world is falling apart, but recommending good reads seems vaguely helpful? Plus JSTOR is open access now so...

First up! On finding a process/techniques: @strickvl rec’d this excellent how-to-do-a-PhD book https://www.bookdepository.com/Authoring-PhD-Patrick-Dunleavy/9781403905840 … (also on Kindle) @strickvl's PhD blog posts are also full of amazing advice https://www.alexstrick.com/blog?tag=phdtoolsseries …

I’m not sure what I would have done w/o @strickvl & @felixkuehn’s work incisive analysis on the Taliban (like this: https://ahrc.ukri.org/documents/project-reports-and-reviews/ahrc-public-policy-series/islamic-independent-perfect-and-strong-parsing-the-taliban-s-strategic-intentions-2001-2011/ …) Moreover, the work they’ve devoted to making primary sources accessible through @FirstDraftPub is an invaluable gift to scholars/analysts

I'd be remiss not to mention @anamarjona & @Ras_Karya They got me excited about insurgent governance to begin with. So many echoes of their work in my own work on the Taliban (but even divergences or my disagreements spurred new thinking) If I have to choose just one work...

As I was working through the Taliban’s evolution, I became increasingly curious about the performative aspects of insurgency. The main focus of most studies is insurgent violence. Rightly so. But acting like a state becomes at some point almost as important as waging war.

This often manifests in darkly, distractingly absurd ways (why are Talibs mimicking govt electricity bills down to the detail? Is there a Talib copyshop? ... Srsly tho: why all the effort?) But as any student of Foucault knows, real power lies in subtler forms of coercion...