Finding one's place in chaos: returnees' reintegration experiences in Northern Iraq

Migration in northern Iraq is a product of global, postcolonial processes driven by highly unequal international relations of global capitalism and geopolitics. With a focus on 'reintegration' experiences of returnees to northern Iraq who have left abroad over the last four decades and returned since the 1990s, this Working Paper takes into view a myriad of people who had very different reasons for migrating - either for conflict/political and/or economic reason - and returning at some or several points in time. While their experiences after return with settling (back) in are highly individual, this Paper focuses on reintegration as a process from an emic perspective. It analyses the experiences of compelled and self-decided returnees in re-establishing themselves after return by looking at their return preparedness - understood as the willingness and readiness to return - at the individual and institutional level. Therefore, four reintegration dimensions (economic, social, psychological, political-structural) form the lens for the investigation. Studying (northern) Iraq, among other origin and return countries for migrants in Europe, is unique because financial remittances do not constitute a main motivation for emigration as, e.g., in West Africa or the Western Balkans. Instead, Iraqi Kurds seek a better life, and their migration entails the search for autonomy and often signifies a political act of emancipation from governance failure in the origin context

(Re-)Constructing Afghanistan? : Rewriting rural Afghans’ Lebenswelten into recent development and state-making processes

Afghanistan has been in political turmoil since the late 1970s. The coup d’état in April 1978 was followed by Soviet intervention, civil war, Taliban rule and recent international intervention. This dissertation identifies modalities of local governance by analyzing the patterns of representation, conflict mediation, legitimacy, and power of Afghan rural society in the second half of the post-2001 decade as well as changes in local governance patterns over the past three decades. The study is based on more than 14 months of field research, which was conducted between 2006 and 2009 in seven districts of three provinces of northeastern Afghanistan: Kunduz, Takhar, and Baghlan. Adopting a broad understanding of local governance as field-specific activities that regulate the collective coexistence of social communities in different action arenas, this study posits that local governance is more than local government. It enables a comprehensive consideration of non-government-related influences, the life-worlds of rural dwellers, and the everyday practices and underlying norms and experiences (moralities) that structure self-conduct, intra- and inter-community governance processes, local politics, and social order of rural society in northeastern Afghanistan. The dissertation adopts natural resource user communities as a level of analysis in which a particular environmental resource is used and access to it is negotiated between its actual and potential users. The primarily qualitative analysis used in this study examines access patterns, bundles of power resources, and legitimacy in three types of local resource user arenas. Specifically, the study explores the negotiation of access to irrigation water in five canal areas of the Kunduz oasis, the access to pastures and rangeland in two mountainous districts of Takhar, and the access to wood and other non-woody fuel plants in selected communities of Baghlan and Takhar. By considering the social differentiations within resource user communities, the study outlines the ambitions and dilemmas of average local resource users and their appointed caretakers in terms of their attempts to secure equitable access amidst the competing interests of rural elites. Different types of local representatives are shown to determine the fate of the rural population and to exert a key role in rural development in terms of locals’ attitudes towards their government and the international aid community. This work evaluates the implementation process of three natural resource management projects under international guidance in the research area and concludes that Afghanistan’s rural development and reconstruction processes establish an image of reforms and state-building. Instead, negotiated state-making with highly uncertain outcomes is manifest. In conclusion, the key features of everyday politics in rural northeast Afghanistan and the main concepts are revisited. It is argued that popular dichotomist notions such as the distinction between state versus society or formal versus informal institutions are not applicable, as structural-relational factors explain governance processes better than rights-based approaches. The analysis presents bundles of power resources as an operational concept of power. The author suggests that the disconnect between local social order and the ordering ideal of the international community can only be bridged by acknowledging local realities and designing programs and interventions accordingly. This recognition of rural Afghans’ life-worlds and local realities is the precondition for a qualitatively different engagement between the international community and Afghanistan, which would presumably lead to sustainable reconstruction

Making sense of Daesh in Afghanistan: a social movement perspective

So-called Islamic State (IS or Daesh) in Iraq and Syria is widely interpreted as a terrorist phenomenon. The proclamation in late January 2015 of a Wilayat Khorasan, which includes Afghanistan and Pakistan, as an IS branch is commonly interpreted as a manifestation of Daesh's global ambition to erect an Islamic caliphate. Its expansion implies hierarchical order, command structures and financial flows as well as a transnational mobility of fighters, arms and recruits between Syria and Iraq, on the one hand, and Afghanistan-Pakistan, on the other. In this Working Paper, we take a (new) social movement perspective to investigate the processes and underlying dynamics of Daesh’s emergence in different parts of the country. By employing social movement concepts, such as opportunity structures, coalition-building, resource mobilization and framing, we disentangle the different types of resource mobilization and long-term conflicts that have merged into the phenomenon of Daesh in Afghanistan. In dialogue with other approaches to terrorism studies as well as peace, civil war and security studies, our analysis focuses on relations and interactions among various actors in the Afghan-Pakistan region and their translocal networks. The insight builds on a ten-month fieldwork-based research project conducted in four regions - east, west, north-east and north Afghanistan - during 2016. We find that Daesh in Afghanistan is a context-specific phenomenon that manifests differently in the various regions across the country and is embedded in a longterm transformation of the religious, cultural and political landscape in the cross-border region of Afghanistan-Pakistan. The direct links between Daesh in Syria and Iraq and its branch in Afghanistan are relatively weak, mostly indirect and largely symbolic, being performed through public displays of allegiance. Daesh appears to mobilize resources mainly through translocal social networks established in the past and connect the Afghan-Pakistan border region with Gulf Arab countries, not Daesh’s headquarters in Raqqa. The ideology of Jihadi Salafism derives from longer-term processes and provides a new framework for actors in Afghanistan that is there to stay. Jihadi Salafism is a small but ultra- violent part of the large-scale spread of Salafism manifest in the mushrooming of Salafi mosques and madrassas, particularly in the east, north-east and north of Afghanistan. The Paper suggests that, while Daesh in Afghanistan is not the extended arm of Raqqa, it certainly has to be taken seriously. For it is precisely this relative autonomy that makes it likely to survive the fall of Mosul and Raqqa

Meaningful political participation: lessons learnt from UN mediation in Afghanistan and Syria

In this Policy Brief, we present lessons learnt and sub-sequent policy implications from an in-depth analysis of the UN peace processes on Afghanistan and Syria. We argue that in both processes, the ability of peace process participants who come from Afghanistan and Syria to politically participate in their respective process was and is severely limited, thus hindering the prospects of successful conflict transformation. By political participation, we mean that peace process participants not only attend negotiations (“are being included”) but are in a position to (co-) determine who is negotiating the agreement (incl. which representation mechanism is adequate), what is the format of peace-making (incl. methods of consultation), and what are the issues negotiated in which order (agenda-setting). We call this ‘meaningful political participation’. Emphasising “inclusivity” in peace processes over meaningful political participation is highly problematic for potential progress towards longer-term/ sustainable peace. Potential organisers of peace negotiations and related pre- and post-peace agreement measures (whether outside actors or ‘indigenous’) should strengthen political participation and process legitimacy for representatives from the populations concerned. This would contribute to opening a new pathway towards more sustainable peace processes, also beyond the Syrian and Afghan cases

Beyond Doha and Geneva: peacemaking engagement of Afghans and Syrians in North Rhine-Westphalia and Germany

For several decades now, Germany has become home to significant numbers of Afghans, and more recently Syrians, who have fled war. In this Working Paper, we analyse the political engagement for peace by Afghans and Syrians in Germany since the beginning of violent conflict in Afghanistan (1978) and Syria (2011). Departing from an understanding of peace processes as more than summits and diplomatic events, we focus on peacemaking initiatives ‘from below’ by Afghans and Syrians in Germany, with a particular emphasis on activities in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), in a long-term perspective. As a guiding research question for this Paper, we ask: To what extent have Afghans and Syrians in NRW and other parts of Germany been able to engage in peacemaking, and how are these efforts linked to official talks and the situation inside Afghanistan and Syria? We argue that the different types of engagement we give evidence of, for instance, rallies, publications, the establishment of associations and even privately initiated dialogue forums for peace, constitute significant building blocks in peace processes. They demonstrate the agency of individuals and groups of Afghan and Syrian background to engage for peace and the potential impact they could have if acknowledged more widely. However, the same individuals and initiatives are usually excluded from official negotiations. In NRW, Königswinter near Bonn hosted the UN-Talks on Afghanistan in 2001, but only few representatives of Afghans in Germany were invited to participate. Similarly, the state of NRW, and Germany as a whole, are home to the highest number of Syrian refugees in Europe, yet hardly any individuals have been part of the Syria negotiations in Geneva. Our research highlights how history writing and research have sidelined organically emerging initiatives for peace from among societies facing war— including among those living abroad. The evidence in this Paper, however, demonstrates that bottom-up engagement of exiles has initiated activities from the grassroots to the highest level, that is comparable to official Track 1 talks that comprise representatives of the major armed factions of a conflict. In conclusion, we argue that such Afghan- and Syrian-led initiatives should receive significantly more scholarly attention and that their consideration will likely change the history writing of war and peace with a much clearer emphasis on the perspective of those who are concerned the most

Jihadi-Salafism in Afghanistan - beyond Taliban, al-Qaeda and Daesh: options for German foreign and development policy

Any new initiative at Islamic education sector reform must be preceded by a critical analysis of why previous reform attempts did not succeed, and religious scholars did not engage. The GoIRA should change budgeting priorities and consider allocating more resources to the construction and financing of community mosques and religious schools (madrassas) so that the field is not left to Wahhabi- and Salafi-inspired donors. External influences and funding for religious institutions regardless of sect should be cut off. The notion of Islam has increasingly become contested in Afghanistan due to the fragmentation of the political and religious landscape over the last decades. Jihadi interpretations of Islam have become widespread; Salafism and particularly militant Jihadi-Salafism is just one among several such ideologies. Additional funding lines should enable religious and non-religious civil society groups to launch grassroots and policy initiatives that could engage Afghans of all walks of life in broadbased debates about the role of religion and ideology in Afghan society. An estimated 46 per cent of the Afghan population is under 15 years of age. Given the deteriorated security situation in many parts of the country since 2009, religious education is often the only option to learn. With the increasing influence of Salafi madrassas and mosques, a growing share of youth gets exposed to potentially radical thoughts through basic education. Thus, it is of utmost importance to expand and improve technical and financial support for non-partisan basic education, vocational training and high-quality secondary and higher education for Afghanistan's youth. Critically review German foreign and development policy regarding its potential impact on radicalization and countering violent extremism since the start of German engagement in post-Taliban Afghanistan. Future policies in Afghanistan as well as in other intervention contexts should take the lessons of this reflection into account. It can benefit the design of intervention strategies not only of the German government but also other members of the international community

Exodus from Afghanistan: how Germany can support the agency of Afghans in protracted displacement; recommendations for the German government

Since February this year, the intergovernmental negotiation process on developing the Global Compact for Migration has been taking place in New York. The German government should (1) advocate for the National Labour Migration Strategy and the National Labour Policy of the Government of Afghanistan to be taken into account. It should (2) support a reduction in transfer fees for remittances sent by Afghan migrants, as suggested by the KfW. The government should work towards ensuring that internally displaced people in Afghanistan and refugees in the regional host countries, Iran and Pakistan, receive the right to education, land and housing, medical care and effective legal protection as a matter of principle. Administrative authorities in the German states should only carry out deportations of Afghans if they can guarantee the safety of the deportees in the long term and enable sustainably humane living conditions. An immigration law would regulate legal access to the German jobs and educational/training markets for qualified people and skilled workers from abroad, including from Afghanistan, and rule out the immigration of ineligible people. Training and employment schemes should be implemented in areas that are under the control of the government as well as outside of these areas through collaboration with locally elected community development councils, guilds and professional associations

Situated sustainability: a research programme for conflict-affected settings and beyond

Sustainability is not a universal concept. Instead, research should acknowledge that it is anchored and expressed in many different variations of local practices, understandings and imaginations of resource use across and within significantly different contexts. Presently, the SDG discourse supersedes other understandings of sustainability. Even where it claims to be participatory, it tends to streamline visions and practices of sustainable living along SDG-principles. Researchers should seek deep engagement with stakeholders and disadvantaged communities who are not being given a voice in these processes (slum-dwellers, undocumented migrants, etc.). Researchers, policy and development practitioners should make efforts to balance the ecological bias in sustainability research and implementing practice and acknowledge insights from social science and interdisciplinary fields such as urban planning, peace and conflict research as well as forced migration/ refugee studies. Situating sustainability means co-production of knowledge through input from academics and laypersons alike in research design, analysis, dissemination and implementing change. Urban spaces represent particularly fruitful sites for research because it is here that people of different backgrounds (e.g.migrants, the forcibly displaced, established communities) mix and competing as well as complementing ideas of sustainability might coexist. By combining the three dimensions of the suggested research agenda, i.e., contextualizing sustainability, acknowledging alternative ideas beyond the SDGs and conducting transdisciplinary research, scholars could aid societal transformation that is not only ecological but will eventually call for socio-political changes towards more inclusive, equal and just societies. The research agenda of Situated Sustainability could mitigate associated ethical risks

Why Afghanistan is not a safe country of origin

Reconstruction and the establishment of peace in Afghanistan have failed. Germany, as party to the intervention, has to accept its share of responsibility for this failure. The German government can do this in their policies towards the Afghan refugees by offering them with prospects both in Germany and in Afghanistan, rather than deporting them. With a well-managed immigration system, the German government, governments of the European Union, the OECD and of BRICS countries as well as governments of Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries can make an important contribution to the population’s security and to overcoming future challenges. Within a relatively short period of time, refugees ought to be able not only to obtain a status that allows them access to education, training and further qualification measures but also to work, which will give them the chance of integrating into host societies. This would also strengthen the potential of Afghans who already live abroad to help and to provide help for their fellow countrymen and –women staying in Afghanistan. In addition, opportunities for immigrants to qualify for legal migration opportunities (through immigration law, for instance) ought to remain open. A long-term, possibly decade-long investment strategy is necessary to support sustainable economic development driven by the internal market and Afghan purchasing power. Development projects must be integrated into this strategy and complement corresponding public measures by the Afghan government while taking into account the need of the private sector for reliable rules and regulations. It is of critical importance to expand and diversify vocational training centres where the Afghan youth can obtain qualifications needed on the internal job market and develop prospects for the future in their country. The German government must make greater use of its diplomatic influence in working towards a consensus for a viable roadmap for peace with the participation of the governments of Pakistan, Iran, the United States, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and India. It should also press for legal access to land and housing for all those who have returned and who were displaced within the last 15 years