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Recent studies explore youth and children language brokering at the interface of caregiving for their migrant families and frame this conceptualisation as interactionally mediated practicing of care with the overall purpose of family sustainability during the family's coping process within the migration context. From this joint perspective, youth and children brokers appear to provide actively care through language while conducting everyday brokering practices to fill interactional gaps between their families and the wider society, and enable the interactional parties involved to express themselves. During this mediation, interactional strategies are crucial because language brokering is beyond translating and interpreting. Drawing on ethnographic data, the paper shows the unique ability of linguistic ethnography to scrutinise interactional strategies in relation to care and applies this approach to examine a number of strategies that Sima, the main young language broker of an Afghan family in Denmark, employs during her within-family brokering. Whereas previous studies have shown that language and culture brokers in their brokering practices act from the perspectives and experiences of their families and the wider society, this paper demonstrates how Sima's awareness of multiple competing perspectives within family interactions facilitates her mediation in caring for the family's parent–child relationships and reconciliation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses critical discourse analysis and critical literacy to analyze the first in a series of literacy primers developed with US support for children in Afghanistan in the 1980s, called 'Jihad literacy'. The text is analyzed for its ideological content as related to the themes of religion, violence, and martyrdom in the historical perspective of the Cold War and the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. The paper demonstrates how the notion of 'Jihad' was subverted to promote a holy war against the Soviet invasion. The educational system supported by the US created a radical version of Islam based on violence and martyrdom, shaping the Afghan society to this day. We contend that the same or similar institutions shape current discourses as in the past and that children are the main victims of politico-economic warfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper was developed as part of a panel for the International Psychoanalytic Association's (IPA) 53rd Congress in July 2023. In this paper I discuss treatment with students from the American University of Afghanistan as part of a team at New York University's Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. The paper reviews the themes that I identified while working with three students from the university. The themes include issues of identity and power, role confusion, and finally the question "am I doing a good thing?" Simultaneously, I discuss my own countertransferential process and disavowed material based on my own cultural background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intelligence scholars routinely portray intelligence oversight as a means of restraining intelligence activities, particularly covert operations. The consensus overlooks situations where oversight can instead channel popular passions. This paper documents how Reagan era activists recruited legislators to the Afghan resistance cause. Their legislative-civic alliance demanded the CIA launch more aggressive operations in Afghanistan, sidelining established oversight committees. The resulting covert action campaign risked Soviet escalation, eliminated plausible deniability, and gave advanced U.S. technology to potential terrorists. This episode highlights how well-organized lobbyists may affect the intelligence agenda and challenges assumptions that wider engagement in oversight will always restrain intelligence agencies' overreach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Located at the intersection of feminist geographies of development and embodiment, this paper explores the everyday gendered experiences of international women staff working for an education-related NGO in Afghanistan. Drawing from a larger study, this paper is based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with eight international women who have spent extended periods of time working in Afghanistan. It reveals the various ways international staff experienced and managed their western female bodies within and across public, non-work related spaces. Our analysis focuses on the participants' ethical and cultural considerations of covering, navigation of gendered eye contact, and experiences of sexual harassment in the streets of Kabul. It reveals how women's embodied experiences within and across non-working spaces of development led to (partial) knowledge, heightened reflexivity, critique of the development industry, and deep questioning about identity politics. Ultimately, this paper offers valuable insights into the corporeality of international women in public spaces in Afghanistan. It highlights the importance of non-work related spaces for cultivating women's understandings of difference, relationality, and ethical relationships with the Afghan women they work for and with. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the combined impacts of COVID-19 and sanctions on Afghans in Iran. It draws on semi-structured interviews with Afghans and experts that were analyzed thematically using the human security framework. Findings indicate that Afghans without access to the internet and social media received no detailed and accurate information through national TV and radio. Patients with COVID-19 had difficulty accessing imported medicines, which were not affordable for Afghans with middle and lower economic backgrounds regardless of their immigration status. We argue that sanctions in combination with the COVID-19 pandemic have negatively affected the economic and health conditions of Afghans in Iran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1883, Thomas Patrick Hughes, the director of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in Peshawar published a romance novel set along the Afghan frontier of British India. This paper argues that Hughes's romance novel, Ruhainah, offers an alternative perspective on the role of evangelism in the empire by attending to the importance of affect and desire in the mission's project. Scholars of Christian missionary work have debated the role of missionaries in projects of empire, but this scholarship is frequently limited by a dichotomous debate: Did missionaries of the British Empire reify imperial control? Or, in the name of Christian universalism, did these missionaries resist the empire's violence and racism? Through heuristically adopting Ruhainah as a guide to the numerous publications of the CMS in Peshawar and the archives of personal correspondences of CMS officials, this paper cuts across these dichotomies by demonstrating that Hughes used his various writings to train his readers to romanticise and desire the Christianization of the Afghans. While Hughes's variously resisted and reified imperial policies, his writing used this very tension between Christian universalism and racist particularism to cultivate 'an affect of empire' and a desire for the religious encounters possible along the Afghan frontier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia has one of the largest Hazara diasporic communities outside of Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan. Their identities as Hazara, Afghans, Muslims and recently arrived refugees/asylum seekers are often subject to negative representations in public discourses in Australia and compete with a dominant version of Australian identity that remains largely Anglo-centric. This research highlights the importance of agency and social context as Hazara Australians negotiate belonging and their multiple or hybrid identities. Through participant observation and semi-structured interviews with Hazara Australians, this paper explores the participants' self-perceptions as Hazara (ethnic), Afghan (homeland), Muslim (religious), Australian (host nation), and (former) refugees, and the ways these were negotiated and experienced. The participants in this research offer a re-imagining of Australian national identity, defined by its multicultural nature and the sharing of rights and responsibilities through Australian citizenship, enabling Hazara to describe themselves as 'Australians' or 'Aussies'; and to find belonging that includes their multiple identities, as Hazara/Afghans, Muslims, and former refugees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a contribution to the understanding of migration beyond its spatial dimension to include the multiple temporalities that are entailed. We rely on empirical material collected among young Afghan men in Greece to explore how they conceptualize and make sense of waiting in their own terms by proposing an ethnographic depiction of card and online games. We argue that card and online games are a way for our interlocutors to express some level of agency. With their play, they create and reinforce social ties, respectively, creating and reinforcing a support network that persists over time and beyond geographical dispersion. Therefore, they transform waiting into an experience through which they may assert their personal autonomy and group belonging and reinvest meaning into their everyday life. They eventually develop some ability to manage the uncertainty that dominates their lives, present and future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Afghanistan was among the lowest ranking countries worldwide in the United Nations Development Programme 2018 Gender Inequality Index, ranking 168 out of 189. Amnesty International, Afghanistan's Ministry of Women's Affairs and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission have all reported a rise in gender-based violence against women by both State and non-State actors. Afghanistan is party to several international human rights instruments, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, under which the State is obligated to eradicate all types of discrimination, violence and other potential detrimental practices against women. Moreover, under the due diligence standard, States are urged to exercise due diligence to prevent, investigate and, in accordance with national legislation, punish acts of violence against women. This paper addresses the issue whether Afghanistan has met its international obligations to eliminate violence against women using the due diligence standard. It identifies the dismal shape of the current regulatory, institutional and policy frameworks concerning the elimination of violence against women in Afghanistan. This article concludes that Afghanistan has failed to protect women, potentially leading to a breach of its obligations under international law and proposes certain recommendation to improve the plight of Afghan women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research suggests that Afghan immigrants and their children face challenges in settlement stemming from the impact of displacement, language barriers, poor health, limited education, limited knowledge of or access to services, and discrimination. Using data from Canada's 2016 Census, this paper adds to these findings pointing to poor labour force outcomes for Afghan immigrants as compared to other immigrants. Sons of Afghan immigrants fare better than their fathers, but no better than other immigrant men in employment probabilities, but those who are working generally have higher earnings. The daughters of Afghan immigrants fare much better both in terms of employment probabilities and earnings as compared to other immigrant women. Home ownership probabilities for Afghan households are low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper follows Thomas Faist's invitation to analyse the prominence that migration issues have acquired in European and North American political discourses and public perceptions. It situates mobility, beyond usual dichotomies between voluntary and forced migration, in the increasing global landscape of exclusion that characterizes today's world. It proposes as a working hypothesis that mobility can be seen as a testimony of the immorality of the global polity and as a political act subverting classical forms of state territoriality and contesting the distribution of wealth. This general point is illustrated with ethnographic vignettes on Afghans on the island of Lesbos, the port of entry in Europe for many of them, in Friuli, on the northeastern border of Italy, and finally in the jungle of Calais, where many candidates to asylum ended up in very precarious living conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, Republican nominee Donald Trump vowed to bring troops home from Afghanistan. After the election, in August of 2017, newly elected President Trump, with advice from national security adviser McMaster, decided to keep troops in Afghanistan. It is reported that the President was convinced to keep troops in Afghanistan after shown a black and white photograph of Afghan women in miniskirts from the 1970s (Eberhardt, 2017; Rucker & Costa, 2017). These photographs, in juxtaposition with images of veiled women, however, play a specific role in how we think about Afghanistan and intervention. Examining media representations of Afghan women, we explore media coverage in The New York Times, through a thematic analysis of 286 articles beginning with the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 up to 2018. We focus on coverage of Afghan women over the span of 17 years, paying close attention to news coverage following the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, President Obama's direction to increase the number of military troops in the country, and President Trump's decision to keep troops in Afghanistan. This paper examines how Afghan women are presented in media coverage and how these representations contribute to larger discussions of intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns young adults who came to Sweden from Afghanistan as unaccompanied refugee minors (UMs) and their engagement with poetry and other creative activities. The aim was to explore how UMs use poetic writing and other creative activities to handle resettlement challenges. Seven young men and six young women, aged 18–24, participated in semi-structured interviews. The material was analyzed using the three components of poetry therapy, developed by Mazza. Three themes were identified: (1) Encouragement; (2) Creative expressions as a "safe place"; and (3) A sense of recognition. Through creative expressions, our participants could understand and handle the emotional difficulties and the insecurity associated with resettlement. Poetic writing was a way to convey personal experiences of injustices, a source of self-understanding, and a way to establish new social networks. We discuss and present suggestions on how poetry and other creative activities can be integrated in interventions toward UMs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different types of low-scale mobility have traditionally aided Afghans in Pakistan to cope with the challenges of everyday life during forty years of displacement: cross-border and domestic movement, resource usage from assets 'back home', transnational networks, and circular migration conditioned by war, prospects for peace and economic opportunities. However, in the past twenty years, Afghans' transnational living and mobility have not only become politicised, but mobility options have decreased considerably. This article analyses the underlying immobilisation dynamics, the compression of displacement dimensions, and its effects which translate into Afghans experiencing increasing immobility as forced displacement, accompanied by a feeling of protractedness after spending decades in Pakistan moving freely within the country and cross-border. Based on figurational theory, we argue that the observed linearity of immobilisation dynamics is not inevitable and discuss the potential of Afghans, the governments involved, donors and implementers to change the established figurational dependencies and possibly create alternative solutions that centre on mobility as robust right. Based on our analysis of the socio-political figuration of Afghan refugees in Pakistan – what we call the ARiP figuration – we argue that Afghans should be granted a right to transnational living and mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on an action research project focused on improving engagement with Afghan students studying in the Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP) across metropolitan Adelaide in Terms 3 and 4, 2016. The purposes of the research were to identify issues faced by the students, enable development of new programs, reflect on methodology and create enhanced learning opportunities to meet the needs of all stakeholders. In doing this, the overarching objective was to increase student attendance. Questionnaires were designed and translated into Dari. Responses were collected from 67 Afghan students, 20 AMEP teachers and six community leaders. The paper recommends four strategies to improve Afghan student attendance and increase student satisfaction. The study indicates that it is in the best interests of the AMEP and TAFESA to continue regular and structured research into other student cohorts to maintain a leading edge in English language delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The critically acclaimed 2018 Australian film Jirga follows an ex-Australian soldier, Mike Wheeler, who returns to Afghanistan three years after a firefight during which he kills a civilian. Wheeler returns at risk of his death to confess his guilt to the man's community and the film examines themes of forgiveness and revenge, guilt, trauma, justice, and, as one Afghani tells Wheeler when he explains what he is doing back in Afghanistan, whether 'war is like this'.) This article will explore the ways Jirga uses the generic forms of the war film to convey meaning; it interrogates the usefulness of positioning films as either adhering to or subverting generic tropes, and instead points to the historically contingent evolution of generic tropes across time and place. With this understanding we can see genre tropes as complex, ambiguous, and sometimes even contradictory, attempts to develop meaning out of wartime experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Each year refugees transit southern EU Member States where in theory they should claim asylum but where in reality they have little chance of being able to make a claim, and almost no chance of having it examined properly, much less being actually granted asylum. This paper argues that the current EU regime turns some refugees into undocumented migrants - 'illegal migrants' in political and public discourse - and shields EU Member States from their international legal obligations. The article illustrates the effect of EU asylum policy through a case study of a group of young Afghan men in Paris. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In modern times when we speak of a mobile lifestyle we think of backpackers, fruit pickers, tourists, bikies or people living in caravans. Some people, of course, deliberately choose such a lifestyle. In the context of the historical past, of the people who moved in and out of this place - Kalgoorlie (our conference venue) - one group in particular had a very mobile lifestyle, though not by choice. I refer to the Afghan camel drivers who came to Australia for economic reasons. They mostly arrived as single men and assisted the explorers in their expeditions, and contributed to the development of the infrastructure of the Australian outback. The camel drivers steered the camels, 'the ships of the desert', that carried water tanks out to the mining areas such as Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie and other areas where water was scarce. The camels also carried wool bales and boxes of merchandize from one part of Australia to another. And they carted sleepers for the construction of railway lines from Perth to Coolgardie, and materials for the development of the Overland Telegraph Line in South Australia back in 1870-1872. The mobile nature of the lives of the Afghan camel drivers never permitted them to stay in one place for long. The Afghans were predominantly Muslims. They retained their culture and religion in such a harsh lifestyle. In this paper I examine the pattern of their mobile lifestyle from 1860 to 1930 and discuss their identity when they were with other ethnic groups, conflict when they faced resistance and their outspoken nature when they were regarded as the 'other'. Finally, I consider their loyalty to their Australian employers (and explorers). This paper relies on both primary and secondary sources, including oral testimonies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canadian women have been at the forefront of the international movement for women's rights in Afghanistan since the rise of the Taliban in the late 1990s. Focusing on the prominent group Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan (CW4WAfghan), this paper looks at the role its advocacy assumes in the context of the 'War on Terror'. In Canada, as in the United States, government agencies have justified the military invasion of Afghanistan by revitalizing the oppressed Muslim woman as a medium through which narratives of East versus West are performed. While CW4WAfghan attempts to challenge dominant narratives of Afghan women, it ultimately reinforces the Orientalist logic on which the War on Terror operates. Drawing on Chandra Talpade Mohanty's study of feminist pedagogy, this paper explores the implications of CW4WAfghan's discourse and its dissemination through the Canadian school system. It highlights how CW4WAfghan's portrayal of Canadian values and responsibilities is at odds with feminist efforts to reconceptualize the gendered nature of war and national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small-state leaders can profit enormously by collaborating with great powers on clandestine intelligence activities. The United States historically has provided billions of dollars in military and economic aid to intelligence liaison partners that host intelligence collections facilities or support joint covert operations. While many of these relationships are characterized by trust and mutual benefit, others are subject to a constant struggle for control. Unlike the scrutiny paid to overt base negotiations, this clandestine bargaining largely has been overlooked in intelligence and International Relations literature. This review of the negotiations surrounding the U.S.–Pakistani joint covert operations in Afghanistan during the 1980s addresses this void. Declassified documents and memoirs reveal that Pakistani leaders deliberately deceived Washington as to their motives and commitment to the joint Afghan program in order to maximize their negotiating leverage. This case study demonstrates that acquiring accurate information regarding a partner's intentions is a critical factor in determining power dynamics within an intelligence liaison relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Women's under-representation in the construction industry is evident in developing and developed economies worldwide. Previous studies show that several factors, including cultural and societal norms, result in the low participation of women in the construction industry. This study explores the combined effects of socio-political conflicts and patriarchic society on female construction professionals' experiences and career paths in the Afghan construction industry. The thematic analysis of the qualitative data collected from in-depth semi-structured interviews with eight Afghan female construction professionals revealed that social and political unrest influenced their career choices and career growth in the Afghan construction industry. In addition, widespread corruption and security issues distinctly shaped their work experiences. The findings also revealed the negative influence of overprotective culture and religious beliefs on women professionals' experiences and careers. Finally, this study found that office-based roles, family support, and technology adoption encouraged women's participation in the Afghan construction industry. Given the scarcity of research from similar contexts, this study provides empirical evidence on various challenges female professionals face in the construction industry in patriarchic societies and war-affected and conflict-sensitive regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper maps a shift in emphasis in the representation of Muslim women in Western discourse from that of victims in need of Western rescue to that of active participants in Islamism and the ‘Islamisation’ of the West. Muslim women activists have developed an articulate response to representations that depict them as passive victims, emphasising that many women undertake their religious practices (in particular, those relating to dress) by ‘choice’ and play an active role in resisting patriarchal practices imposed in the name of their religion. Their responses to representations of Muslim women as perpetrators of Islamic extremism who must be disciplined into acquiescing to Western/Enlightenment/secular norms, however, are still evolving. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores possible legal responses to the Taliban's 'other' crimes--those inflicted against Afghans during Taliban rule. This criminality largely has been rendered invisible by virtue of the international community's focus on punishing the Taliban's support of transnational terrorists, in particular al-Qaeda. This invisibility is problematic given that carefully constructed prosecutions of these 'other' crimes could play an important role in post-conflict reconciliation and national reconstruction in Afghanistan. Such reconciliation and reconstruction can legitimise a representative post-conflict state and curb terrorist recidivism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic and interventions addressing it raise important questions about human mobility that have geopolitical implications. This forum uses mobility and immobility during the pandemic as lenses onto the ways that routinised state power reacts to acute uncertainties, as well as how these reactions impact politics and societies. Specifically, we propose the concept of "shock mobility" as migratory routines radically reconfigured: emergency flights from epicentres, mass repatriations, lockdowns, quarantines. Patterns of shock mobility and immobility are not new categories of movement, but rather are significant alterations to the timing, duration, intensity, and relations among existing movements. Many of these alterations have been induced by governments' reactions to the pandemic in both migrant-sending and receiving contexts, which can be especially consequential for migrants in and from the Global South. Our interventions explore these processes by highlighting experiences of Afghans and Kurds along Iran's borders, Western Africans in Europe, Filipino workers, irregular Bangladeshis in Qatar, Central Americans travelling northwards via Mexico, and rural-urban migrants in India. In total, we argue that tracing shocks' dynamics in a comparative manner provides an analytical means for assessing the long-term implications of the pandemic, building theories about how and why any particular post-crisis world emerges as it does, and paving the way for future empirical work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article comprises a short case exemplifying ethical challenges arising for a participatory researcher working with Afghan women refugees during the Covid-19 pandemic in Germany. The researcher is an Iranian-German woman, qualified as a midwife, undertaking doctoral research on refugees' access to reproductive health care. Disclosures about some women's experience of domestic violence are made, which raise ethical issues for the researcher relating to personal-professional boundaries, roles and responsibilities. Two commentaries are given on this case from participatory researchers based in Germany, UK and Austria. Both commentaries highlight the relevance of the ethics of care for participatory research and for this research in particular, which entails very close relationships between the doctoral researcher and the refugee women with whom she is researching. The first commentary analyses the research process in terms of Tronto's five phases of care, while the second illustrates the importance of caring institutions in supporting researchers working on sensitive topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Afghans' protracted displacement is a geopolitical legacy from the Cold War. Although Pakistan's return policymaking has foreseen the complete voluntary return of Afghans since the end of the Cold War, then as now, about three million Afghans reside in Pakistan. This article advances the notion of calculated informality to dissolve this seeming contradiction. Pakistan's policymakers have excelled in calculated informality by successfully navigating the domestic and geopolitical arena over time based on practices of deregulation and ambiguity. Methodologically, the article applies Evolutionary Governance Theory (EGT) to reconstruct Pakistan's return governance path based on the analysis of legal documents, previous research and secondary literature. EGT reveals the dependencies and layering at work in return governance and points out how the geopolitical positionality of Pakistan has determined its return policymaking. The structured interconnectedness of path-, goal- and interdependencies illustrates rigidities of the governance path and why opacity and ambiguity in return governance persist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two decades, there has been a growing tendency among Middle Eastern states to use armed non-state actors (ANSAs) as proxies, making them a constant feature of regional conflicts. Fatemiyoun and Zainabiyoun brigades are two recent examples of state-sponsored ANSAs, which have played a significant role as Iran's proxies in the course of the Syrian conflict. This article seeks to answer the question as to what role the Fatemiyoun and Zainabiyoun brigades have played in Iran's military strategy in Syria and how effective they have been in securing Tehran's strategic interests in the war-torn country. The article argues that following the outbreak of the Syrian crisis—as the most critical challenge to Iran's foreign policy in the Middle East over the past decade—and due to Iran's restraints in sustaining a large-scale direct military presence in Syria, the two Afghan and Pakistani brigades acted as Iran's ground forces, reducing human and financial costs of a direct military engagement for Tehran. The effective role played by the two brigades was mainly reflected in the four strategic battles of Aleppo, Southern Syria, Palmyra, and Eastern Syria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Help seeking for domestic violence is complex and multifaceted, and settling in a new country might make the help-seeking process more challenging and complicated. This study explored the barriers to seeking help for domestic violence, specifically experienced by Afghan women after settling in Australia. The study involved 21 semistructured interviews with newly arrived Afghan women. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed, and the data were analysed thematically. The barriers Afghan women experienced were embodied in cultural norms to stay in marital relationships, demands to preserve the family's reputation, personal circumstances, and women's experiences with, and perspectives on, available services. The findings suggest that policy and practice should recognise those barriers and respond to them in a culturally appropriate way. IMPLICATIONS Domestic violence services' procedures and processes should be developed based on an understanding of multiple layers of oppression and barriers to seeking help for migrant women. Service providers should apply an intersectional lens along with antioppressive perspectives to address barriers to domestic violence services women experience at different levels. Social workers in domestic violence services need relevant training to provide culturally appropriate services to migrant women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In mid-2000, the publication of the anti-Taliban book Kashf Shubuhāt al-Muqātilīn caused a stir in jihādī circles. Written by Arab jihādīs based in Peshawar, Pakistan, the book made the case that it was not permissible for Muslims to fight alongside the Afghan Taliban on the grounds that the group was not sufficiently Islamic, having committed a host of polytheist acts. While some of the jihādī movement's leading scholarly authorities quickly refuted the book, its anti-Taliban arguments nonetheless gained popularity over time. Today, the jihādī movement is divided between those who see the Taliban as a legitimate Islamic movement worthy of praise and support (the view espoused by al-Qaida and its supporters) and those who perceive it as an apostate movement standing in the way of true Islamic revival (the view adopted by the Islamic State and its supporters). The controversy over Kashf Shubuhāt al-Muqātilīn in 2000 prefigures the current divide and provides something of the context in which it should be understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was performed to determine the prevalence, genotype distribution and risk factors of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection among β-thalassemia patients. ELISA was used to detect HBsAg and HBcAb. Molecular evaluation of HBV infection was performed by nested PCR, targeting S, X and pre-C regions of the genome, and sequencing. Of 126 thalassemia patients, 4 cases (3.17%) were positive for HBsAg, 23 cases (18.25%) were positive for HBcAb, and 6 cases (4.76%) had HBV viremia with genotype D, sub-genotype D3 and subtype ayw2. HBV prevalence among thalassemia patients was not statistically associated with gender distribution, place of residency, marital status and frequency of blood transfusion. HBsAg seroprevalence was significantly higher in Afghan immigrants and patients with ALT levels of 41–80 IU/L. The prevalence of HBV viremia was significantly higher among thalassemia patients aged >20 years compared to the patients aged <20 years. Moreover, 1.59% of thalassemia patients had seropositive occult HBV infection, which was positive for HBV-DNA and HBcAb but negative for HBsAg. Considering the relatively high prevalence of occult HBV infection among thalassemia patients, there is a possibility of their contamination through donated blood. Therefore, screening of donated blood based on detection of HBsAg cannot abolish HBV transmission through blood transfusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I offer the concept of 'refugeespace' as a way of understanding Afghan refugee women's homemaking practices in Delhi, India. Such practices unfold in various spaces–the domestic space/apartment, the refugee neighborhood, and the larger megacity–Delhi. I map 'refugeescape' through the social networks that Afghan refugee women create with one another, livelihood and leisure activities, and everyday socio-economic negotiations that knit the spaces of the domestic home, neighborhood, and city together. Tracing the spaces that constitute Afghan refugee women's lives in Delhi in relation to each other, the constraints they impose, and the possibilities they offer point to how these spaces are a critical aspect of refugee women's strategies of surviving and thriving as refugees in Delhi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coal can be considered as the main fuel for electricity generation in Afghanistan. However, there is a quite limited data available about the overall quality, distribution, and character of coals in Afghanistan. Specific gravity (S.G) of coal as a key factor can be used for the estimation of potential tonnage production and be a fundamental parameter for the selection of coal washery process method. However, there is no investigation which comprehensively explores relationships between S.G and coal properties. In this investigation, the potential of S.G prediction based on conventional properties for Afghan coal samples was explored by stepwise regression and random forest. Pearson correlation (r) and variable importance measurement (VIM) of random forest (RF) were applied to select the most effective variables among conventional parameters for the S.G prediction. Results of VIM indicated that ash and carbon content of coal samples had the highest importance for the S.G prediction. Stepwise regression and RF models were developed based on these two coal variables. Testing the generated models indicated that S.G of Afghan coals can quite accurately predict by these models (R2 > 0.90). Modeling outcomes showed that the highest S.G (S.G > 2) for Afghan coal occurred when ash was higher than 40% and carbon was lower than 30%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I analyse two Hindi movies shot in Afghanistan - Khuda Gawah (1992) and Kabul Express (2006) - to demonstrate the salience of Hindi cinema as a site where Indian foreign policies are re/presented (presented and re-presented). Accordingly, I have identified two tropes. The first trope, signifying presentation, relates to an ethnic synecdoche in which Afghans are equated with Pathans. The second trope, demonstrating re-presentation, illustrates a deviation vis-à-vis the Indian foreign policies on Afghanistan by way of inserting the enemy Taliban into the moral universe of the cinematic Self. I also discuss select aesthetics of Hindi cinema to show how they can further add to the study of critical geopolitics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing studies focus on explaining how militaries adapt in different ways to the challenges of war. However, organisation theory suggests that competition and normative pressure will lead overtime to convergence within particular business and policy sectors, as optimal ways of organizing and operating are learned and emulated. I examine this dynamic in the context of the conflict between the Afghan Taliban and the British Army. That there should be convergence in modes of operation or organizational form between these two very different opponents seems most improbable. Yet, as this article shows, convergence did occur as the conflict wore on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Premarital sex is normatively unacceptable in Afghanistan, yet rapid social and cultural transformation in the country may be changing these traditional norms. In dialogue with cross-national scholarship, we examine attitudes toward premarital sex and experience of premarital sexual behaviours among urban Afghan youth. We use data from 1256 never married individuals aged 15–29 surveyed in ten Afghan cities. The results show that respondents, on average, have moderately liberal attitudes toward premarital sex and that almost one quarter of them had engaged in either sexual foreplay or penetrative intercourse. Multivariable results indicate that premarital sexual attitudes and behaviours were significantly associated with several individual-level characteristics, family and intergenerational relationships, and social ties and interactions. At the same time, instructive gender variations emerge. The findings illustrate the dynamics of premarital sexual relations in this and similar contexts where such relations are traditionally stigmatised but multifaceted, societal changes increasingly challenge this stigma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article showcases the lived experiences of Afghan women and girls trafficked into forced marriage in Balochistan province of Pakistan and identifies the processes that lead to their exploitation. Situating forced marriage within the ambit of human trafficking, the study highlights the gendered/aged/classed aspects of the phenomenon and unveils how it is linked to other forms of trafficking. Women and girls trafficked into forced marriage experience multiple forms of exploitation, stigmatization, and social isolation throughout their lives. The study pinpoints that this form of trafficking generally remains outside the radar of anti-trafficking policies which further enhance the vulnerabilities of trafficked victims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies China's and Pakistan's key interests in Afghanistan, and their mutual cooperation to pursue them. It identifies security, energy, connectivity and geopolitics as China's main interests. Get recognition of the Durand Line as an international border with Afghanistan, prevention of 'hostile elements' from using Afghan territory and access to the CARs as those of Pakistan's motives. Both sides cooperated with each other on Afghanistan under the umbrella of their strategic partnership. Islamabad helped in establishing initial Taliban-China contacts and persuaded the Taliban for negotiations with the USA and Kabul authorities. Beijing supported Islamabad's Afghan policy and mediated between Islamabad–Kabul and Taliban–Kabul negotiations. China and Pakistan backed their diplomacy with economic assistance and extended CPEC and BRI to Afghanistan. Amidst various challenges, thus far Sino-Pakistan cooperation on Afghanistan has benefited to their mutual interests and contributed to the peace process. Afghanistan has emerged as a new chapter of their relationship. How Sino-Pakistan cooperation advances in this troubled country in future is yet to be seen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aspirations and the decisions of young Afghan men at the south-eastern borders of the EU are structured by a moral economy of migration that has a twofold dimension. On the one hand, migration implies a social system of exchange and redistribution between young migrants and their relatives who stayed behind. It is underpinned by a code of conduct implying mutual obligations and collective responsibilities, by a system of values and solidarity, norms and social obligations that defines what it means for them to be successful migrants and therefore 'good men'. On the other hand, migration is characterised by the high pressure to succeed. Prompted by their quest for autonomy and recognition, becoming increasingly aware during their journey that only a few of them will be able to settle down in Europe, the relationships among young migrants are imbued by competition and jealousy. Migration becomes a rite of passage to adulthood and obtaining protection in socially valued destinations in Europe amounts to accomplishing their mission. The hardship of the illegal journey emphasises the initiation dimension of migration while at the same time making success an extremely demanding task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drivers can be understood as forces leading to the inception of migration and the perpetuation of movement. This article considers key drivers of migration and explores different ways that they may be configured. We modify existing explanations of migration to generate a framework which we call push-pull plus. To understand migration flows better, analysts could usefully distinguish between predisposing, proximate, precipitating and mediating drivers. Combinations of such drivers shape the conditions, circumstances and environment within which people choose to move or stay put, or have that decision thrust upon them. In any one migration flow, several driver complexes may interconnect to shape the eventual direction and nature of movement. The challenge is to establish when and why some drivers are more important than others, which combinations are more potent than others, and which are more susceptible to change through external intervention. Drawing on Afghan and Somali movements featuring 'mixed migration', the article concludes that proximate and mediating drivers, rather than those in the structural and precipitating spheres, appear to offer greater potential for intervention. To be effective, though, migration policy should be understood not simply as a stand-alone lever, but within the wider political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most important arenas that have been profoundly affected by the security situation in Afghanistan is Pakistan's internal security environment. The instability in Afghanistan has had a negative spill-over effect on Pakistan's domestic security scenario, as the Afghan quagmire poses immense implications on Pakistan's domestic framework. One of the important consequences of the Afghan conflict since the 1970s has been the massive inflow of the Afghan refugee population to the neighbouring Pakistan which in following years has brought about a number of demographic and security challenges to the Pakistani society. Therefore along with a number of factors, at this present juncture, Afghan refugees have also become a principal factor in determining Pakistan's Afghanistan policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article argues that while the concept of peace building proved beneficial to Western society, it drew flak in pre-2014 Afghanistan for its inbuilt faults, the overarching US–Taliban conflict and the state failure towards meeting the prerequisites of the coalition strategy. It also argues that peace building in the immediate future of post-2014 Afghanistan is improbable due to the existing and likely conflicts between and among the Afghan government, the Taliban and the newly emerging Daesh or IS group for power, group and ideological domination. The given predicament, the article notes, is fraught with serious consequences for the war-haggard Afghans, their fragile country and its sensitive neighbourhood. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the “repertories” of family life of men of Afghan background in Odessa, Ukraine. It focuses on these men's intimate relationships with “local women” and challenges the notion that such unions merely offer a form of emotional escape for migrants or refugees far from home. Instead, we advance two arguments: first, that Afghan men in Ukraine form part of a complex transnational trading network, rather than a bounded group of refugees or migrants; second, that the cross-community relationships between Afghan men and “local women” play a significant role in the spatial anchoring and commercial fortunes of transnational Afghan traders in Ukraine. In the analysis of our ethnographic data, we consider the importance of the aftermath of the Cold War in shaping the diverse forms of family life within these trading networks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article offers a single case study of everyday suffering (khapgan—Pakhto; “feeling down”) experienced by one Afghan migrant in the United Kingdom, Zmarai. Single cases may destabilize categories of the political as conventionally institutionalized in relation to Afghan migrants according to such concepts as diaspora, citizenship, refugees, trauma, and culture, etc. Drawing theorizations of the way affects are key to a political economy's analysis of migrant labor (‘a moving heart’), the study moves away from political or psychological categories centered on the trauma of war and displacement, toward the unfulfilled promises of progress and liberty experienced less exceptionally within the family economy under transnational migration. This points to the salience of hope, and its loss, in the ways individuals assume, challenge, and reshape their load of cultural control and economic obligations—and raises questions around the problem of what, in a field of multiple interrelated mobilities, appears not to move. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan has increased dramatically in recent years as the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has tried to put down the Taliban insurgency. Reports of civilian casualties are, however, frequently dismissed as being examples of Taliban propaganda or blamed on the actions of enemy fighters, while the tragic loss of civilians is rarely marked or even acknowledged within the dominant frames of war. At first glance, the fact that civilians are so easily expendable appears to be at odds with the humanitarian intentions underpinning the war. However, I argue that the rhetoric of humanitarianism operates to preclude Afghans from appearing as recognizable human beings, foreclosing the possibility that they possess a life worthy of protection. Drawing on the work of Judith Butler, I will trace the ways in which Afghans have been reduced to the status of absolute victims, denied the very essence of their humanity and therefore a publically grievable death. By effectively constructing them as the living-dead, existing in a state of abeyance, Afghans have been exposed to a deathly logic in which their lives are expendable in the quest to make them liveable once again. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The post-September 11 narrative of the drug economy attempts to isolate this ‘problem’ to the space of Afghanistan locally by stressing the tropes of tribalism and warlordism. In this narrative, these two phenomena are framed as obstacles in building a strong state and its institutions and ensuring development in Afghanistan. In contrast, I propose to understand tribalism and warlordism as political and historical categories, both in the sense of their discursive use as well as their function in Afghan social and political life, as Afghans organized themselves, but were also organized by others – though not in isolation, but in continuous engagement with these others. I place this analysis within the broader discussion of understanding how the Cold War interventions affected the organizing of political power in Afghanistan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, I survey almost a decade of visual representations of Afghan women, which have emanated from first world media organizations and have circulated in transnational media space. Only one of the photographs is explicitly linked with a political discussion. However, all of the photographs contribute to a set of possible statements about veiling and unveiling. Through discourse analysis informed by a genealogical approach, I demonstrate how these photographs contribute to the constitution of a set of power relations whereby the United States and its allies have sovereignty and where it seems ‘natural’ that these sovereign nations can intervene in the affairs of another nation, in the name of ‘saving’ the women of that nation. I argue that these photographs are part of the constitution of a particular regime of representation, where media representations are inextricably linked with military conduct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article (re)examines Afghan youth within the post-Taliban nation-building process through a close review of the growing academic literature on the nexus of development and conflict, as well as the author's personal, in-country interactions with Afghans over the past decade. It argues that when people believe in development, they view inequalities as a particular stage that they must pass through to emerge on the other side. Yet, when a country's people lose faith in the promise of development, they begin to view inequalities without the hope that reaching the other side is simply a matter of time and patience. When this ‘loss of faith’ occurs one option is to try to exit to a better place. The second option is violence—to break through to the ‘other side’ through force. This article argues that with the decade long failure of development in Afghanistan such trends are increasingly visible among Afghan youth, and suggests the need for a critical paradigm shift in the way that we view the country and the context of development there. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]