ENTRY DESCRIPTION
Buzkashi is an archaic game still played in Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Two groups of riders chase after the beheaded corpse of a dead goat and try to drop it in the other group's goal. In Tajikistan, where I have attended a game lately, Buzkashi offers one of the rare opportunities for men and boys to celebrate and live freedom and traditional notions of manhood in a social and political environment that restricts personal choices, individual preferences and individual freedoms in many ways. Although Tajikistan and other countries of the region will remain deeply patriarchal for many decades to come, men face more and more challenges to their traditional role and identity as providers and head of the family. Buzkashi, it seems, offers a temporary escape to a world, where wild men faced no limits.

AUTHOR
Dr. Alamir is a political scientist by education and has been working in security policy and international development contexts for more than twenty years. In the wake of numerous business and private travels to Europe, Asia and Africa, she developed a keen interest in photojournalism, people and landscape photography. Around 2010, she assumed a more ambitious approach to photography and has been working to improve by professional standards ever since. Since 2017, she has won several honorable mentions in international photo competitions, among others several honorable mentions of the International Monoawards and the 1st prize (Discovery of the Year) 2019 of the Tokyo International Foto Awards.

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