Prof. Dr. Phil Langer
Aisha-Nusrat Ahmad
Ulrike Auge
Prof. Dr. Angela Kühner (during first funding phase)
The Afghan Youth Project studied the impact of experiences of everyday violence and social suffering on identity formation, social agencies and political imagineries of young people in Afghanistan. It focused on Afghan youth’s experiences, perceptions and interpretations of their current situations while emphasizing their paramount role as reflexive actors in a sustainable peacebuilding processes in the country.
226 children and adolescents aged between 10 and 24 years participated in the project by proving interviews, projective essays and drawings in the northern provinces of Balkh and Kunduz. Following a participatory research design, local peer researchers conducted the majority of the interviews on a gender-specific basis and were involved in the interpretation of the data.
The young people delivered a remarkably sharp analysis of the current socio-political and economic situation and the manifold structural problems in their country. They elaborated on their criticism at the macro and meso levels and express how these issues affect their current lives and conceptions of the future. Some of the key areas of their concern were: ongoing violence in the country, the current political system, poverty and unemployment, corruption and nepotism, education. In the accounts of the young people, these issues were closely interwoven with one another; they impacted their everyday lives through a complex interactions between massive social injustice, experiences of inequality, innumerable daily stress factors, and various forms of violence on a daily base, particularly affecting minorities, girls and women.
Against the backdrop of a fragile, precarious and insecure situation, the young people developed collective counter-narratives of hope and desires that depicted a different, peaceful Afghanistan. Understood as a collective mission of the youth, these counter-narratives included conceptions of a fair, just and meritocratic society that provides realistic opportunities for its people – especially for the vulnerable. Unity and solidarity were strongly emphasized. Faith and hope were a key part to their future visions for the future, imbuing them with a strength to cope with ongoing violence and the daily stress factors.
Briefly after completing the project, the Taliban takeover in 2021 forcefully destroyed this vision of youth and left behind a betrayed generation.
Original language: English, German
Project Start: 01/2016
Project End: 01/2019