Ali Ahmad Safi |Ph.D. candidate, Department for Migration and Globalization, Danube University Krems
Afghanistan has developed a very complex migration history since the mass exodus began when the Soviets’ army marched into Afghanistan in 1979. More than one in three Afghans have either been displaced internally or have migrated internationally. Little is known about the Afghan diaspora and the organizations that they form after settling in Europe. The question arises on how they engage with their beleaguered homeland while living in the diaspora. There is a huge research gap on how Afghan diaspora organizations are engaged in transnational activities that are home-oriented. This research investigates to what extent Afghan diaspora organizations contribute in the development of their home country.
Over the course of four decades, millions of Afghans have been forced to leave Afghanistan to seek international protection. Around five million live in the neighboring Iran and Pakistan who fled the war when the Soviet Union invaded the country in 1979. A small number of affluent Afghans made their way to the Americas, Europe, and Australia. During the increasing arrival of refugees into Europe in 2015, nearly 180,000 Afghans applied for asylum, which as a result, increased the Afghan population in Europe exponentially. Such large displacement of Afghans has produced a ‘long-term multi-layered’ diaspora in the near and wider region. The data from five EU countries under study for this paper indicates that a total of 421,530 Afghans lived in Austria, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden by the end of 2018 with Germany hosting 257,110 Afghans alone – the highest numbered compared to other countries.
Derived from the Greek language, diaspora means to “scatter” or “to disperse” and often refers to the dispersion of Jews from their historic homeland. Since the second part of the last century, the diaspora has proliferated to include a more dispersed population with both a voluntary and involuntary nature. In this blog, diaspora refers to “Afghans living outside Afghanistan.” Once settled in the destination country, the diaspora tends to form organizations out of their informal networks to “ensure continuity of their communities in the host countries” and also to extend support to the country of origin either in the form of development cooperation, political activism, or cultural representation. These organizations can vary in size; small, large, well-established, ephemeral, and unstable and at times limited only to the family members. The areas of their engagement, membership, and target group served are elements that determine the effectiveness of diaspora organizations. They, however, are not always effective and do not represent the entire diaspora from the same national or ethnic group such as the diverse heterogeneous Afghan diaspora organizations.
The diaspora organizations provide a social space for their co-ethnic migrant groups to interact with each other and build new identities as cultural mediators and representatives. They also provide social services to the children of their fellow migrants by arranging mother-tongue language classes, translation services, and maintaining their continuous ties and relationships with the communities of their home country. They encourage the flow of economic and social remittances to their country of origin and support investment as well. The diaspora organizations transform the ‘imagined community’ into a more tangible community of practice when they celebrate religious or national holidays.
The Afghan diaspora organizations have evolved in the course of the last forty years. Since Afghans’ arrival in Europe especially since 2015 and 2016, the numbers have proliferated in size and number. The data on Afghan diaspora organizations was collected by Maastricht Graduate School of Governance at Maastricht University and obtained from the Danish Refugee Council Diaspora Program. The data collected through ethnographic methods reveal that there are a total of nearly 550 diaspora organizations in five countries under investigation. According to the data, Sweden and Germany are the leading countries with 133 and 129 diaspora organizations respectively.
This research employs Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) both as a research approach and analytical technique. First designed by Charles Ragin (1987), QCA is a systematic and case-based study approach. The objective of QCA is to analyze the phenomenon of complex causality and to apply it on a small to intermediate-N research design. The unit of analysis for the current study is the Afghan diaspora organizations in five EU countries with the largest number of Afghan diasporas.
To investigate the engagement of diaspora organizations using fuzzy-set QCA (fsQCA), a mix of primary and secondary data will be used. The primary data includes the ethnographic observations and field notes taken between 2015 and 2020 in five European countries. The secondary data includes the Maastricht University and Danish Refugee Council’s ‘Afghan Diaspora in Europe’ mapping in Denmark, Germany, Sweden, and the UK. This research aims to select 50 diaspora organizations as set cases for the comparative analysis. The most relevant cases with similarity and diversity are selected with little to deep understanding of the cases by the author.
The fsQCA provides a unique opportunity to study the level and degree of Afghan diaspora organizations’ engagement in transnational activities particularly concerning the country of origin. The study has developed a number of conditions to evaluate the impact and intensity of diaspora organizations’ cross-border engagement. These conditions are categorized in economic and socio-cultural transnationalism in the ‘known community’ and the political transnationalism in the ‘imagined community’. The conditions are crucial, as they will determine which outcomes they generate. The data is presented in the form of a truth table and a test is carried out to check the consistency and the coverage of the data in a fsQCA truth table.
migration history since the mass exodus began when the Soviets’ army marched into Afghanistan in 1979. More than one in three Afghans have either been displaced internally or have migrated internationally. Little is known about the Afghan diaspora and the organizations that they form after settling in Europe. The question arises on how they engage with their beleaguered homeland while living in the diaspora. There is a huge research gap on how Afghan diaspora organizations are engaged in transnational activities that are home-oriented. This research investigates to what extent Afghan diaspora organizations contribute in the development of their home country.
Over the course of four decades, millions of Afghans have been forced to leave Afghanistan to seek international protection. Around five million live in the neighboring Iran and Pakistan who fled the war when the Soviet Union invaded the country in 1979. A small number of affluent Afghans made their way to the Americas, Europe, and Australia. During the increasing arrival of refugees into Europe in 2015, nearly 180,000 Afghans applied for asylum, which as a result, increased the Afghan population in Europe exponentially. Such large displacement of Afghans has produced a ‘long-term multi-layered’ diaspora in the near and wider region. The data from five EU countries under study for this paper indicates that a total of 421,530 Afghans lived in Austria, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden by the end of 2018 with Germany hosting 257,110 Afghans alone – the highest numbered compared to other countries.
Derived from the Greek language, diaspora means to “scatter” or “to disperse” and often refers to the dispersion of Jews from their historic homeland. Since the second part of the last century, the diaspora has proliferated to include a more dispersed population with both a voluntary and involuntary nature. In this blog, diaspora refers to “Afghans living outside Afghanistan.” Once settled in the destination country, the diaspora tends to form organizations out of their informal networks to “ensure continuity of their communities in the host countries” and also to extend support to the country of origin either in the form of development cooperation, political activism, or cultural representation. These organizations can vary in size; small, large, well-established, ephemeral, and unstable and at times limited only to the family members. The areas of their engagement, membership, and target group served are elements that determine the effectiveness of diaspora organizations. They, however, are not always effective and do not represent the entire diaspora from the same national or ethnic group such as the diverse heterogeneous Afghan diaspora organizations.
The diaspora organizations provide a social space for their co-ethnic migrant groups to interact with each other and build new identities as cultural mediators and representatives. They also provide social services to the children of their fellow migrants by arranging mother-tongue language classes, translation services, and maintaining their continuous ties and relationships with the communities of their home country. They encourage the flow of economic and social remittances to their country of origin and support investment as well. The diaspora organizations transform the ‘imagined community’ into a more tangible community of practice when they celebrate religious or national holidays.
The Afghan diaspora organizations have evolved in the course of the last forty years. Since Afghans’ arrival in Europe especially since 2015 and 2016, the numbers have proliferated in size and number. The data on Afghan diaspora organizations was collected by Maastricht Graduate School of Governance at Maastricht University and obtained from the Danish Refugee Council Diaspora Program. The data collected through ethnographic methods reveal that there are a total of nearly 550 diaspora organizations in five countries under investigation. According to the data, Sweden and Germany are the leading countries with 133 and 129 diaspora organizations respectively.
This research employs Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) both as a research approach and analytical technique. First designed by Charles Ragin (1987), QCA is a systematic and case-based study approach. The objective of QCA is to analyze the phenomenon of complex causality and to apply it on a small to intermediate-N research design. The unit of analysis for the current study is the Afghan diaspora organizations in five EU countries with the largest number of Afghan diasporas.
To investigate the engagement of diaspora organizations using fuzzy-set QCA (fsQCA), a mix of primary and secondary data will be used. The primary data includes the ethnographic observations and field notes taken between 2015 and 2020 in five European countries. The secondary data includes the Maastricht University and Danish Refugee Council’s ‘Afghan Diaspora in Europe’ mapping in Denmark, Germany, Sweden, and the UK. This research aims to select 50 diaspora organizations as set cases for the comparative analysis. The most relevant cases with similarity and diversity are selected with little to deep understanding of the cases by the author.
The fsQCA provides a unique opportunity to study the level and degree of Afghan diaspora organizations’ engagement in transnational activities particularly concerning the country of origin. The study has developed a number of conditions to evaluate the impact and intensity of diaspora organizations’ cross-border engagement. These conditions are categorized in economic and socio-cultural transnationalism in the ‘known community’ and the political transnationalism in the ‘imagined community’. The conditions are crucial, as they will determine which outcomes they generate. The data is presented in the form of a truth table and a test is carried out to check the consistency and the coverage of the data in a fsQCA truth table.