Dissertation Project

Family and life histories of illegalized migrants from Pakistan and Afghanistan in Germany. Reconstruction of the migration route, processes which lead to leave the home country and the transformations of emotions during the migration route.


A short summary of the research proposal
Research goal:

The primary goal of the research is to study families and life histories of illegalized migrants from Afghanistan and Pakistan in Germany. That can help in the reconstruction of the process of migration and the experiences during the migration route and the migrants’ current perspectives. In other words, to reconstruct the process that leads to leave the home country and the following biographical development.
The secondary goal of the research is to highlight the effects on the patterns of action and transformation of emotions of the illegalized migrants during their journeys from their respective home countries to Germany. This research interest is to be achieved by a biographical theoretical approach.

Relevance of the topic:
In the cold war era, The US, Saudi Arabia and the Pakistan helped militant jihadist, later called Taliban, to fight against USSR in Afghanistan. Pakistan tribal areas were used for this purpose to train militant and further transport them to Afghanistan, where they firstly fought against the Afghan govt. and later with USSR.
The Taliban alternatively spelled Taleban, is a far-right side Islamist militant movement of the tribesmen of Afghanistan. It ruled large part of Afghanistan and its capital Kabul, as the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan from September 1996 until October 2001. It gained diplomatic recognition from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The main leader of the Taliban movement was Mullah Muhammad Omar until his death. Kandhar is considered as the birth place of Taliban (Nacos 2014).
Pakistan has a long border with Afghanistan through its Tribal areas, which connects both countries. Until 2009, there was no proper check and balance on the Pak-Afghan borders, which helps thousands of the Taliban to run and hide in the Tribal areas of Pakistan. The border is almost 2,430 km (according to the Interior ministry of Pakistan), which make it so complex for an economically weak country like Pakistan to secure it properly and don’t let the Taliban to cross that border.
Tribal areas exist in north-western Pakistan, consisting of seven tribal agencies (districts) and six frontier regions, and are directly governed by Pakistan's federal government through a special set of laws called the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR). It borders Pakistan's provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan to the east and south, and Afghanistan's provinces of Kunar, Nangarhar, Paktia, Khost and Paktika to the west and north. The territory is almost exclusively inhabited by the Pashtun, who also live in the neighbouring provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Northern Baluchistan; they are largely Muslims. The main towns of the territory are Parachinar, Miranshah, Razmak, Wanna, Jamrud, and Landi Kotal (Wikipedia 7/08/2017).
September 9, 2001, the United States of America (USA) faced the devastating terrorist attacks by a terrorist organization called Al-Qaeda. These attacks introduced the World with a new threat in form of Al-Qaeda and a new way of warfare in form of counter insurgency (COIN). The US declared the war against the terrorism and demanded the culprit from the Afghanistan's government of the Taliban, which were housing the terrorists of AI Qaeda and its leadership i.e. Osama Bin laden. October 7, 2001, Afghanistan was attacked by the US and its allies to eliminate the AI Qaeda network and its allies to make the World safer from the terrorism of Al Qaeda, after when the leader of the Afghanistan’s Taliban, Mullah Mohammed Omar failed to hand over the Al-Qaeda leaders. Initially, Al Qaeda's terrorists and Taliban hided themselves in the mountains of the Afghanistan, but sooner when the attrition became so heavy, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda had to move to the tribal areas of Pakistan, which were used by these both militant groups as a training centre in the cold war era. Soft corner existed for them in the Tribal areas, as lots of Tribal areas residents were their companions in the Afghan-USSR war time. It was an easy hide out for these militant groups. Which further go wrong and later more than half of these tribal areas were controlled by Al-Qaeda and Taliban, and these places became safe heavens for them.
Pakistan as an ally of the US in war against terrorism launched military operations through its security forces i.e. Army and Frontier Corps etc. in its tribal areas to play its active role in war against terrorism to eliminate the terrorists from its soil. Although, Pakistan is fighting the terrorist networks in tribal areas but lack of suitable equipment’s, weaponry and training/expertise of its forces in counter insurgency operations; Pakistan is facing serious difficulties to fight the war against terrorism in tribal areas effectively (Ghauri 2009).
Pakistan is fighting a war against terrorism since 2001. US war against terror effect Pakistan the most when it comes to the loss of Citizens, economical or international reputation. Pakistan has lost more than 80 thousand of her civilians since 2001 (Body count/Physicians for Social responsibilities 2015).
The current illegalized migrants flow in Europe raises lots of questions on the future of migrants' lives in Europe, especially in Germany. In 2015 more than 40,000 illegalized migrants from Pakistan and Afghanistan had registered their asylum application in Germany (cf. Euro News 6/5/2016). According to the facts and figures of the United Nations High Commissioner for Illegalized migrants (UNHCR), Afghanistan with 2.7 million has remained the second-largest source country for illegalized migrants. The numbers, mostly grew in 2015 with the high crises in Arab countries and the numbers of Afghan illegalized migrants also grew during the time. Some 46,000 Afghan applicants were recorded in Hungary, 41,000 in Sweden and 31,000 in Germany (Eurostat 20/4/2016). Being a neighbor of Afghanistan, Pakistan (which is also affected by terrorism and has security issues) suffering from the same problem, the number of illegalized migrants also grew rapidly in the last two years, which are more than 1.2 million displaced people and the country is on number 146 on the world human development index (crisis Pakistan/IRC 2016). The current crisis on Arab countries take Pakistan and Afghan illegalized migrants away from the research focus and being an important part of these current crises, it still seeks attention of the scientific research. There is some literature and research available on Afghan illegalized migrants but Pakistan's illegalized migrants in current perspective; are far away from the scientific discourse, which grow up the need to bring these two groups specifically more into the focus of scientific research. This makes it very important to understand and explain illegalized migration from Pakistan and Afghanistan, the life experiences of these migrants and the transformation of their emotions.
It is very significant to study the reconstruction of the migration route, the process which leads to leave the home country and transformations of emotions among illegalized migrants from Pakistan and Afghanistan in Europe and then specifically in Germany; which is dealing with a high number of illegalized migrants and their resettlement. It is not only a problem for the German Government but also for these illegalized migrants who are waiting for their resettlement. Study of their life histories and how their social behavior has been affected because of their experiences is very important because there is no such other research with a biographic theoretical approach to cover these two countries. Due to the current conflict in Arab countries and specially Syria, has lower down the discourse about the illegalized migrants from other countries. Since the Syrian refugee crisis, Afghan asylum seekers in Europe have had to work harder to prove their lives are in danger. But for many of them, more than 55,000 who applied for asylum in Germany in the past five years, deportation means a death sentence (Chirin/Doubli/Martin 2016).
Afghan illegalized migrants were in discourse during the USSR-Afghan war and then in the era of Talibanization (militant groups who expanded their network to Pakistan and Afghanistan) but after the Arab world conflict, the Afghan illegalized migrants are less in discourse, but the migration of Afghan illegalized migrants is still in a high number, which make it important to bring them to the discourse and to talk about their biographies and life histories. According to the Afghan government, 80% of the country is not safe (cf. The guardian news 12/12/2016). That is because extremist groups such as the Taliban and Islamic State’s local affiliate are waging insurgencies in many provinces. Civilians are at risk from frequent bomb attacks, while many individuals are fleeing because they have received specific threats from extremists. (Kingsley 2015). Pakistan is also less or more in the same situation with its security problems, which also has more than 1.2 million inter displaced people according to UN 2013 reports (cf. UN online reports, 09/11/2016).
No one is suggesting that Pakistan is about to be overrun by Islamist militants. But what is clear is that there has been a step-shift in the nature of the insurgency in Pakistan. This is more than mere geography, as the violence spreads increasingly from the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan into the heartland of the country. It is more even than the rising frequency of attacks. What is perhaps most worrisome is that there appears to be a coherence to the attacks that has not yet been fully understood (Myra; MacDonald 2009).
Pakistan has around 1.5 internally and abroad displaced people which make it one in the line of high number of illegalized migrant producer. (IRC 2016). Initially Afghan illegalized migrants were the first to be served and were in the most number but after Arab world conflict, now Syrians illegalized migrants are in the largest number. Hence the rise in the number of Afghan illegalized migrants headed to Europe, which is why they are now the second largest group applying for asylum behind Syrians. (Bilal Ahmed 2016).
Pakistani illegalized migrants, who are not in as big numbers are Syrians or Afghan illegalized migrants, are but still not in a small number. Pakistani illegalized migrants are in different countries of Europe, who claimed asylum. Pakistanis are being overlooked because of a belief that Pakistan is a safe country (Article by Horner in ibtimesnews 2016).
It is hard to find literature about the Pakistani illegalized migrants, somehow there are few columns and articles available about Pakistani illegalized migrants, but it's also very important to bring them into the scientific discourse and the biographies of these illegalized migrants will help in to understand the transformation of their emotions and also in the reconstructing the migration route. The findings of the study will redound to the betterment of these illegalized migrants and of the society in general.

Methodological approach:
Biographical narrative interviews, a method which was introduced by Fritz Schütze (1984; 1987) and further developed by Gabriele Rosenthal (1993; 2015), is an important tool for gathering data for the specified research in form of narrations. It's important to work on the life histories, migration, reasons, and transformations of emotions and then the life of these illegalized migrants in host societies to obtain the answer of my research questions.
I will conduct my data with biographical narrative interviews, and in the analysis, I will use the method of case reconstructions (cf. Rosenthal 1993; 1995).