Back to Pakistan: The political economy of emotions in remigration
Final Report Abstract
An overwhelming majority of Pakistani asylum applicants––nine out of every ten––are denied asylum in Germany every year. Many of those denied asylum are required to leave the country voluntarily or face deportation. Their removal is seen by many to be a solution to deal with their “illegal” presence in Germany whilst simultaneously serving as a means to deter aspiring “economic migrants” from arriving in the country. In this context, we successfully completed our DFG-funded project that ethnographically probed the removal and “voluntary” return of Pakistani citizens from Germany and complemented a growing body of anthropological research on deportation, much of which has hitherto focused on Africa and Latin America. Multi-sited fieldwork for data collection was conducted between 2019 and 2022 in Germany (several months), Pakistan (about a year), and Italy (two months), combined with “remote research”, particularly during periods of travel restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Starting with people’s precarious legal status in Germany, we “followed” our interlocutors on their often coerced, if not forced, return to Pakistan and their improvised journeys from Germany to Italy, typically in the hope of being able to stay in Europe. At various phases of the project, this included “hanging out” and interviews at so-called “voluntary return counselling centres” and refugee accommodations in and around Munich, participant observation upon return in Pakistan with key interlocutors and living with people in migrant-filled flats in Italy. The multiple project outputs range from public scholarship in prominent news magazines such as Der Spiegel to academic publications in leading migration studies journals such as the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. While the public-facing scholarship in magazines and newspapers sought to achieve outreach for the project and engage in public debates on the topics of deportation and “voluntary” returns, our academic publications, in addition to providing ethnographic accounts, addressed several current theoretical issues as well as policy problems. For instance, some of these publications address: how so-called “voluntary returnees” lack volition and agency due to (supra)national policies and practices of German officials; gendered affects and vulnerabilities in the lives of irregularised and returning migrants; the entanglement of religious cosmologies and restrictive migration regimes in the lives of irregularised migrants from Pakistan; and reflect on engaged ethnographic migration research more generally. Furthermore, while the project was ongoing, research was presented at several important disciplinary and multi-disciplinary international conferences.
Publications
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Nations Rebound: German Politics of Deporting Afghans. International Quarterly for Asian Studies, 50, 91-118
Sökefeld, M.
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Forced Migration, the Other Way Round? The Politics of Deporting Afghans from Germany. In M. Makki, A. Azam, S. A. Akash, & F. Khan (Eds.), Forced Migration and Conflict-Induced Displacement: Impacts and prospective responses (pp. 1-20). Islamabad: NUST Press.
Sökefeld, M.
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Is the Pandemic a Chance to Challenge Global Inequality? Sapiens: Wenner Gren Anthropology Magazine Published by the University of Chicago Press.
Mahar, U.
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The Management of Refugee Repatriation: How voluntary are “voluntary” returns from Germany? In M. Makki, A. Azam, S. A. Akash, & F. Khan (Eds.), Forced Migration and Conflict- Induced Displacement: Impacts and prospective responses (pp. 21-36). Islamabad: NUST Press.
Mahar, U.
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“Die Idee der freiwilligen Rückkehr ad absurdum geführt”, interview by Maria Stöhr. Spiegel Online.
Mahar, U.
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When “Voluntary” Return Is Not a Real Option for Asylum-Seekers. Sapiens: Wenner-Gren Foundation Anthropology Magazine
Mahar, U.
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Österreich will Musa nicht. Hinterland Magazine, Issue 50: 69-72.
Mahar, U.
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Letting Die: The Spectacle of Deporting Afghans from Germany. Ethnoscripts, 24(1).
Sökefeld, Martin
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Review of "The Stranger as my Guest: A Critical Anthropology of Hospitality" by Agier, Michel (2021). Social Anthropology, Vol. 30, No. 3, 163-165.
Mahar, U.
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Migratory Men. Routledge.
Stahl, Garth & Zhao, Yang
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Qurb\ani. The Multi-Sided Ethnographer, 281-304. transcript Verlag.
Mahar, Usman
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The affective economy of removal: ethnographic perspectives on deportation and (In)voluntary return. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 51(4), 953-969.
Strasser, Sabine & Sökefeld, Martin
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The feeling of destiny: taqdeer and ‘voluntary’ return in the everyday lives of irregularised Pakistani migrants. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 51(4), 987-1003.
Mahar, Usman
