Afghan Migrants in Brighton

In 2011 the University of Brighton awarded me a sabbatical to explore mutually beneficial forms of partnership between the university, local government and Brighton Afghans. My background in anthropology and critical psychology, long-term friendships and fieldwork amongst local Afghans cautioned me against relying on categories such as ‘culture’, ‘trauma’ ‘security’ or ‘asylum’. These carry assumptions about migrants or asylum seekers which may marginalise, disempower, infer individuals are more determined by ‘culture’ than they are, or that researchers know best. Therefore I avoided asking ‘what can the university or local government do to “help” Afghans?’, or ‘how can local government best “engage” this ‘marginalised community?’ Instead, I queried: ‘what interactions, accommodations and resistances to being ‘engaged’ are at stake? What outcomes do Afghans desire from this engagement; and what potential does a community-university partnership offer to achieve these outcomes? How can my research contribute to local policy-making on migrants? Given there are no links between Brighton Council and any formalised ‘Afghan community’ (hence the title) the project was developmental, just a beginning.

Recent decades of war in Afghanistan have marked major migrations of Afghans into Europe. Over 56,000 Afghans reside in the UK. Afghans themselves estimate there are around 300 Afghans in Brighton not captured in official Census data. Many claimed asylum during the Taliban regime (1994-2001). Afghans work in kitchens, shops, take-aways, carwashes, and hotels, as barbers, security guards and labourers. Many became entrepreneurs, exemplifying capitalist success rather than instability. Approximately eighty Afghans are registered taxi-drivers.

Although Brighton Council provides many services for migrants, Afghans have strong support networks - why bother? They reject the category ‘refugees’, and a ‘host’ country which is pursuing simultaneous military and humanitarian agendas in the context of the 'fourth Anglo-Afghan war' in Afghanistan. Additionally, several previous attempts to form ‘Afghan community’ organisations have reproduced longstanding social-political conflicts in Afghanistan. By contrast, informal networks highlight not essentialised ‘tribal’ antagonisms, but strategic ways Brighton’s Afghans are building community cohesion by downplaying politics in formal spheres.

Suspicion has troubled the partnership. Nonetheless, introducing Afghans to Council-run meetings for agencies working with migrants, we compiled and distributed (via taxi-drivers) over 100 leaflets highlighting changes to housing benefit policy and immigration law. I spend considerable hours filling forms, writing letters, CVs, applications and gathering advice, activities which build trust. Additionally, I am conducting fieldwork on my research interests which concern what everyday movements such as taxi-driving, road-trips, picnics and family visits might reveal about larger movements of Afghan migration, settlement and exile.

These activities revealed some potential for community-university partnership work in two areas. First, sport *is one medium local government seeks to support for ‘vulnerable migrants’ and address diverse mental health, societal and cultural problems. Yet Afghans reject Council-run football teams for refugees and asylum-seekers. Instead, around thirty taxi-drivers play regularly in a local park. Football means ‘love for sport’ ‘freedom through the body’, ‘confidence’, ‘happiness’, ‘a chance to calm the mind’, ‘work harder’, ‘feel united’, ‘manly’. ‘All Afghanis are friends here. *It’s peace!’ Via these small encounters they manage ‘integration’, ‘progress’ and ‘peace’ on their terms. As their sessions—and interactions with the Council and myself—became more established, some small shifts occurred. Planning an all-Afghan local football tournament, several friends approached the Council to assist them secure a venue. Plans were additionally floated for a football match with the University of Brighton.

Second, in a series of interviews I explored some limits to psychological studies that over-exaggerate the trauma of war and displacement, whilst neglecting ways in which mental health is influenced by globalisation, labour migrations, cultural transformation and the ways migrants manage their economic-cultural-familial obligations in a very modern world. Those interviewed located suffering as much in the unfulfilled promises of ‘progress’ and liberty, as in the traumas of the lost homeland. The findings may interest clinicians developing understandings of mental health amongst Afghans outside Afghanistan, as psychiatric criteria of global-health policy also migrate globally. They have produced plans to collaborate with local policy-makers, and researchers and NGOs working with Afghan refugees in Pakistan. Here, Brighton Afghans’ insights will themselves migrate as they feedback on developments.

In sum, peace, progress and integration go beyond the notion of Afghans as deserving objects of assistance by local government programmes. Whilst the university can contribute valuable research and intellectual insights, in Brighton these enterprises should be subordinate to—and should consult with—more autonomous ways in which Afghans pursue community, identity and post-migration settlement.

Nichola Khan Senior Lecturer, School of Applied Social Science

N.Khan@brighton.ac.uk