Young Afghans at the doorsteps of Europe: the difficult art of being a successful migrant

ABSTRACT

The aspirations and the decisions of young Afghan men at the south-eastern borders of the EU are structured by a moral economy of migration that has a twofold dimension. On the one hand, migration implies a social system of exchange and redistribution between young migrants and their relatives who stayed behind. It is underpinned by a code of conduct implying mutual obligations and collective responsibilities, by a system of values and solidarity, norms and social obligations that defines what it means for them to be successful migrants and therefore ‘good men’. On the other hand, migration is characterised by the high pressure to succeed. Prompted by their quest for autonomy and recognition, becoming increasingly aware during their journey that only a few of them will be able to settle down in Europe, the relationships among young migrants are imbued by competition and jealousy. Migration becomes a rite of passage to adulthood and obtaining protection in socially valued destinations in Europe amounts to accomplishing their mission. The hardship of the illegal journey emphasises the initiation dimension of migration while at the same time making success an extremely demanding task.

KEYWORDS:

• Afghan migration
• moral economy
• social networks
• young migrants

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 UNHCR (2005, 2014) and Eurostat (2015).

2 According to many UNHCR and NGO staff members we met in the field, the age of Afghans has decreased since the beginning of the 2000 and Afghans constituted the largest population of ‘unaccompanied asylum seekers children’ in the years 2014 and 2015. This is supported by UNHCR’s statistics and by our own observations in the field.

3 In these four countries the team visited reception centres, informal settlements and private accommodations, as well as public spaces such as parks and squares where Afghans meet and exchange experiences and information. This study was part of a wider research project on Afghan asylum seekers in Europe that covered also Sweden and Hungary (Donini, Monsutti, and Scalettaris 2016) which built on the researchers’ long-term engagement with Afghan migration.

4 In Afghanistan the dates of birth are not systematically recorded by parents or the state; age is defined in social terms considering maturity (mental and physical) and capability. By contrast, age becomes crucial in Europe, as only minors have access to certain entitlements. In this article, we use the notions of young people and adults in sociological terms. For a theoretical approach to ‘social age’, see Clark-Kazak (2009).

5 European laws recognise the right to enter and stay in the EU only to ‘refugees’ who flee persecution and violence. All others, labelled as ‘migrants’, are denied the possibility of legal access. The reasons why they left are considered less legitimate to claim legal entry into the EU. This binary approach has been prevailing since the 1990s, but has become more polarised in the past years. In this context, labelling third-country nationals as ‘migrants’ or ‘refugees’ takes a political dimension, as it implies a judgement on the legitimacy of their claim to enter the EU, and the kind of treatment they should receive. Many scholars have discussed this issue; see for instance Crawley and Skleparis (2018).

6 See for instance Hanifi (2011), Monsutti (2005) and Nichols (2008).

7 HRW (2013); Roehrs (2015); HRW (2017).

8 According to the Global Peace Index for instance, Afghanistan was in 2018 the 162th less peaceful country in the world out of 163, only after Syria. It has been consistently among the four less peaceful countries in the past ten years (http://www.visionofhumanity.org/#/page/indexes/global-peace-index, 11/1/2017).

9 For disillusioned descriptions of the international intervention in Afghanistan, see Coburn (2016); Monsutti (2018).

10 Data on the evolution of the countries where Afghans submitted the largest number of asylum applications are presented in Donini, Monsutti, and Scalettaris (2016, 23).

11 According to the Dublin regulation, asylum seekers have to submit their applications in their first country of entry into the EU. If their passage through a country situated at the external border of the EU has been recorded by state authorities, asylum seekers can be transferred back there, even against their will.