Intergenerational Connections and Futures (ICF): Afghanistan

Project Summary 

Placement, Preservation, and Perseverance: Afghan At-Risk Scholars, Activists, and Students is a project funded by the IDRC that aimed to address the current crisis in Afghanistan– specifically those in the higher education community. A lead team of faculty, students, and scholars from Carleton University and UBC collaborated on this 30-month-long project from 2022 to 2024 which included Afghan scholars, activists and students from across Canada. The project supported scholars, civil society actors, activists, and journalists from Afghanistan, especially women and ethnic minorities, who have been forced to flee as a result of the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban after August of 2021. The project seeked to empower their integration into new homes and scholarly and civil society communities, whilst leveraging their intellectual contributions to Afghanistan’s past, present, and future. 

The project has three main programmatic areas: Placement as Process, Preserving Knowledge, and Intergenerational Connections and Futures. Intergenerational Connections and Futures (ICF) is the UBC arm of the project and it aimed to connect Afghan students in the diaspora with each other and with Afghan at-risk scholars and activists to discuss, exchange ideas, and document possible ‘pathways’ for the socio-political development of Afghanistan. This programmatic area aimed to contribute to informing research, policy, and practice, and international debates about how best to respond to humanitarian, political, and development crises in Afghanistan in the short- and medium-term (and in similar contexts in the future). The team produced two main deliverables: a Working Paper Series: Afghan Displacement, Diaspora(s) and Knowledge Networks and An Anthology: Scholars and Students from Afghanistan– Displacement, Emplacement and Supports   See below for more information.

Project Details

Introduction & Executive Summary by Dr. Jenny Peterson

In this summary, Dr. Peterson provides an overview of both deliverables, providing a summary of each item within the two main deliverables and the significance of each piece.

Working Paper Series: Afghan Displacement, Diaspora(s) and Knowledge Networks

Authors: Ali Kaveh (PhD Candidate), Zohrah Khalili (Research Coordinator), Maryam Begzada, and Shahla Gulistani (Undergraduate Researchers)

This collection of reports focuses on the impact of war, violence and displacement on the higher education system in Afghanistan, alongside the resulting impact on knowledge networks and the future of Afghanistan more generally. Within these reports, the authors also explore how and where Afghans continue to transmit knowledge in ways that aim to preserve the collective knowledge (broadly defined) of the Afghan people. Through this working paper series, the reader will learn about the interconnectedness of politics, migration and the sharing of knowledge as it relates to Afghanistan and its people. Though largely focused on the serious and negative impacts of violence on knowledge networks, within these contributions readers will also find analyses which document practical responses to such disruption and hopefully invite future policy interventions to protect Afghan knowledge networks moving forward. 

We invite readers to also consider where this research has ended and what further research now needs to be taken up by the academic community to further our understanding of the incredible disruption to Afghan knowledge networks that we have seen and the solutions that will ensure the ongoing preservation and transfer of learning both within and between generations of scholars. 

An Anthology: Afghan Scholar and Student Displacement, Emplacement and Supports

Authors: Shogofa Alizada & Aida Sanjush (Undergraduate Researchers)

This collection comprises a series of contributions that, whilst diverse in format, provide insight into the experiences of displacement by Afghan scholars and students, their emplacement/resettlement abroad as well as the nature of supports available through these experiences. What unites this diverse set of resources is a need to consider what one author refers to as ‘the whole of a person’ approach—the need to understand social, cultural, political, financial, psychological and spiritual facets in our understanding and analysis of the above. Also uniting the pieces in this collection is a focus on the individual and the agency of displaced scholars and students; whilst understanding general trends within Afghan scholarly displacement and resettlement is essential, the works in this anthology ask us to not lose sight of the individual and diverse experiences (and needs) of those who have experienced displacement.