Afghan society has been marked in a lasting way by war and the exodus of part of its population. While many have emigrated to countries across the world, they have been matched by the flow of experts who arrive in Afghanistan after having been in other war-torn countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Palestine or East Timor. This book builds on more than two decades of ethnographic travels in some twenty countries, bringing the readers from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran to Europe, North America and Australia. It describes the everyday life and transnational circulations of Afghan refugees and expatriates.

Afghan society has been marked in a lasting way by war and the exodus of part of its population. While many have emigrated to countries across the world, they have been matched by the flow of experts who arrive in Afghanistan after having been in other war-torn countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Palestine or East Timor. This book builds on more than two decades of ethnographic travels in some twenty countries, bringing the readers from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran to Europe, North America and Australia. It describes the everyday life and transnational circulations of Afghan refugees and expatriates.

Based on extensive fieldwork spent among the people of Afghanistan, this text provides an original perspective on the case of the Hazaras and highlights how migration and transnationalism belong at the heart of the anthropological debates surrounding this unique group.

Focusing on the case of the Hazaras, a population from central Afghanistan, the book shows how migration studies and transnationalism are at the heart of theoretical and methodological debates which animate anthropology.
Several wars and migrations have marked the eventful past of the Hazaras. At the end of the 19th century, many of them have escaped from the subjugation of the region of origin by the emir of Kabul. a new exodus has been caused by the fighting which have devastated Afghanistan after the communist coup of 1978 and Soviet intervention of 1979. These movements will in all likelihood not come to en end, even if the situation of the country should improve, because migration became a principle of life.
Migratory flows of the Hazaras are organized around three places: Hazarajat (Afghanistan), the city of Quetta (Pakistan) and some urban centers of Iran. The mobility of the people, the remittances (thanks to the hawala system), as well as the intense circulation ofinformation from one place to another one reproduce social ties in spite of war and dispersion. The social networks and the economic strategies of the Hazaras illustrate the resilience of a refugee population.