Remaining Undone

Abstract

Despite numerous aid programs targeting both widows and heroin users in Afghanistan, a widow and heroin user in Kabul, Aisha, does not receive humanitarian aid and is not part of an addiction treatment program. This chapter looks at forms of kinship that emerge in Aisha’s life amidst serial war in Afghanistan—her relationship to another widow who cares for her, to a wider network of friends, and to heroin. The haalat (situation, condition) of Afghanistan of serial war spanning almost four decades is taken here as an analytical category to unsettle etiologies of addiction, and to critique liberal imaginaries of resilience. By ethnographically exploring the case of Aisha, this chapter asks us to consider the effects of war and humanitarianism on the health of those repeatedly subjected to it and the varied modes of attachment to life that are forged in Afghanistan.