Afghan Stories of War, Migration, and Home

FAIN: FT-270374-20

Benjamin Gatling
George Mason University (Fairfax, VA 22030-4444)

Research and writing two chapters of a book about the stories of displacement and migration told by Afghans living in the Washington, D.C. area.

Afghans have experienced an almost unparalleled level of social trauma in recent decades, suffering through invasions by foreign powers, years of civil war, and ongoing military efforts to create a sustainable political future. I have partnered with members of the Afghan diaspora in the greater Washington, D.C. area to collect their stories about displacement from Afghanistan, movement abroad, and emplacement in the U.S. This NEH summer stipend is to support writing a book manuscript with the data collected. Using ethnographic methodologies, the book explores how individuals who have fled Afghanistan and now live in the U.S. narrate their experiences.

Associated Products

’How can you trust a country?’: Precarity, Personal Narrative, and Occupational Folklore among Afghan Refugees in the U.S. (Article)
Title: ’How can you trust a country?’: Precarity, Personal Narrative, and Occupational Folklore among Afghan Refugees in the U.S.
Author: Benjamin Gatling
Abstract: The US State Department has issued twenty-six thousand special immigrant visas (SIV) to Afghan translators, guards, embassy staff, and their dependents since 2009. The case of Afghan SIV recipi- ents is unique because of the overlapping ways that precarity has doubly characterized the Afghan experience in both Afghanistan and the US. Work for the defense contracting industry in Afghanistan was danger- ous and temporary. Now refugees struggle for stability in the gig econ- omy, many while driving for Uber and Lyft. This article explores how Afghans conceptualize this precarity through stories about their work in Afghanistan and the US. Occupational identity and work have been foundational to core theorizations of personal narrative. This article uses the stories of precarious workers to interrogate the centrality of work identity in folkloristic theories of personal narrative. Additionally, this article uses the experiences of Afghan refugees to suggest what a more critical engagement with precarity offers folklore studies of work.
Year: 2021
Primary URL: https://doi.org/10.2979/jfolkrese.58.3.04
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of Folklore Research
Publisher: Indiana University Press

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