Segmentary lineage system and health among the Pashtun of Afghanistan

Emerging trends in health problems and failing public health policies generally and in epidemic or pandemic situation in particular cannot be understood without an appreciation of underlying social structures. The understanding of the organization and social structure of the Pashtun society in Afghanistan is allowed by ethnographic research carried out within the family and lineage, physical and political places within which the crisis induced by the TB epidemic is expressed in the violence of a social drama. And it is not the underlying social structures who should be changed, according to the Author, but the public health policies. In this specific case it is the international health policies for the distribution of therapies that need to be changed. Recognising the roles of husband and wife in the tribal context, i.e. the constellation of related expectations, as well as the specificity of the crisis situation within the lineage, requires a different and contextual health policy.