A Catch 22: Afghans and the International Migration Regime

Description

After decades of war, Afghans were ‘globalized’ long before 2021. Their dispersion worldwide is
in stark contrast with their current de facto immobilization. National geopolitical interests in
Pakistan and Iran, strategic non-regulation, and a renewed populist turn in European migration
governance constitute Afghans as objects – deportable, deniable, illegalized and
subjected to instrumentalization if needed. Subsequently, Afghans are caught in
a Catch 22-situation with nowhere to (re)turn to.

Katja Mielke, Dr phil, works as Senior Researcher at the Bonn International Centre for Conflict
Studies (bicc). Her academic interest focuses on informality in migration governance at
different levels and inequality in power relations within the international cooperation regime.
Region-wise she specializes on Central, west- and South Asia, with practical experience in
Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, besides the post-Soviet Central Asian states.