When my home school district began to welcome Afghan refugees we identified two major needs: resources for families and knowledge for staff. In collaboration we developed this list of knowledge resources for staff and families.
As with any endeavor that addresses culture, identity and language we welcome feedback, especially from members of the community. If you see a resource missing, or have any concerns, please let us know so we can correct it.
Family Resources
1. The International Institute of New England (IINE) and Dr. Rachel Lehr present: IINE Afghan Cultural Orientation Webinar — November 2021. This 2-hour training, held on Zoom, explores the geography, languages, and culture of Afghanistan, as we prepare to welcome hundreds of Afghan evacuees to New England. Thank you, Phala Chea, Lowell ELE Director for this reference.
2. The U.S. Department of Education has curated a collection of educational, student and family engagement, and general cultural and linguistic documents to help school districts and other organizations support Afghan refugees.
3. Colorín Colorado has articles and links to many resources at: How Schools Can Partner with Afghan Refugee Families
4. Ascentria Care Alliance has a Cultural Mentorship program page with resources under Afghan Cultural Training
5. Family Engagement Resources Available in Dari and Pashto (from WIDA): As refugee students and families from Afghanistan begin their school journey in the U.S., WIDA decided to translate and publish some of our family engagement resources in Dari and Pashto – two languages spoken in Afghanistan. The newly translated print resources, which are housed on the WIDA Family Engagement webpage under Explain ELL Status and Language Testing and Promote and Support Family Engagement, help explain topics like: determining EL status and language testing, and providing families with strategies to support children’s language development.
6. Dari/Pashto-English Phrase Book from Indiana University Bloomington’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global Studies and International Studies:
Cultural note: Many Afghans may not know their birth date, or their birth year. Many use January 1 as their date of birth as a result.
In welcoming our new families, we found a wide array of language access in Pashto, Dari and English. Some are college graduates, and some have no exposure to written language. Asking families what they need will be critical for their success.
Resources for Educators Working with Afghan Evacuees
- Switchboard, a non-profit organization working with refugee service providers across the Unites States, published a resource list that includes many resources in Pashto.
- USAhello.org has an Afghan Resource Center with information on many topics in English, Dari, and Pashto.
- Bridging Refugee Youth and Children‘s Services provides an illustrated handbook about how to raise children in a new country available in multiple languages including Pashto and Dari, as well as a bilingual guide for unaccompanied children.
- The Cultural Orientation Resource Exchange has multiple resources for refugees including videos in Pashto on the following topics: education in the U.S, employment, employment for refugee women, healthcare, housing, public transportation, resettlement agency services, supporting your child in school, and working with your resettlement agency. Find the videos in Pashto here.
Historical/Modern Background (non-academic)
Podcast: THROUGHLINE Afghanistan: The Center of the World (NPR)
- The Essential Rumi by Jalal Al-Din Rumi
- Two Kings And A Leader: Mahmud Tarzi by Omer Tarzi
- Blood Washing Blood: Afghanistan’s Hundred-Year War by Phil Halton
- Afghanistan Rising: Islamic Law and Statecraft between the Ottoman and British Empires by Faiz Ahmed
Podcast: THROUGHLINE Afghanistan: The Rise of the Taliban (NPR)
- Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid
- Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 by Steve Coll
NYT Podcast: The Daily – An Economic Catastrophe in Afghanistan (Dec 2021)
- An estimated 22.8 million people — more than half of Afghanistan’s population — are expected to face potentially life-threatening food insecurity this winter. Many are already on the brink of catastrophe.
NYT Podcast: The Daily – A Conversation with an Afghan General (Sept 2021)
- When General Sadat became the highest-ranking police official in Afghanistan, he tried to overhaul the country’s police with the American way of war. Read a profile of him from 2019.
NYT Podcast: The Daily – America’s Miscalculations, Afghanistan’s Collapse (Aug 2021)
- An Afghan military that did not believe in itself and a U.S. effort that President Biden, and most Americans, no longer believed in brought an ignoble end to the United States’ longest war.
- A takeover of the whole of Afghanistan was all but absolute as the government collapsed and the U.S. rushed through a frenzied evacuation.
NYT Podcast: The Daily – The Fall of Afghanistan (August 2021)
- Kabul fell to the Taliban far faster than many had imagined it would, leaving most Afghans with no way out.
- The Afghan military was built over 20 years. How did it collapse so quickly?
Academic/Scholarship Resources from Sanaa Alimia @SanaaAlima (Twitter thread)
Twitter thread pasted below:
https://twitter.com/SanaaAlimia/status/1426984982791208963: Some of best English language scholars on Afghanistan & diaspora that go beyond usual tropes. Trying to amplify Afghan scholars too… Google them / Google Scholar them. *Please add more in comments 1. Khadija Abbasi https://t.co/tDrVbXglSk
2. @jawan_shir – amazing historical work https://upenn.academia.edu/JawanShirRasikh
3. Shahram Khosravi (many to choose from), start with: “Deportation as a Way of Life for Young Afghans,” 2016.
4. Anila Daulatzai (everything) including “The discursive occupation of Afghanistan.” https://jstor.org/stable/pdf/20455619
5. Shah Mahmoud Hanifi (everything), including historical analysis + contemporary commentary on Afghanistan. https://t.co/WcrctKoGWu
6. Paniz Musawi Natanzi, “Art, Geopolitics, and Gendering Afghanistan.” https://centreforfeministforeignpolicy.org/…/art…
7. James Caron (lots to choose from) “Reading the power of printed orality in Afghanistan.”
https://soas.ac.uk/staff/staff77535.php
8. @pagalpanchi‘s “Imperialist Feminist Redux.” https://t.co/4Cjq71A8SW
9. Julie Billaud https://upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15342.html
10. Ayesha Khan: “Afghan Refugee Women’s Experience of Conflict and Disintegration,” Meridians, 3: 1 (2002), 89-121.
11. @timothynunan Humanitarian Invasion: Global Development in Cold War Afghanistan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
12. Sab Gul Khattak [on women in Afghanistan] https://jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.1086/510158
13. Martin Sökefeld. “Nations Rebound: German Politics of Deporting Afghans.” International Quarterly for Asian Studies. 50: 1-2, pp. 91-118.
14. @zolszewska1‘s entire body of work https://anthro.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-zuzanna-olszewska…… anthro.ox.ac.uk
15. @Orzala‘s PhD, publications, and policy work @AREUafghanistan. See: https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/23663/1/Nemat_4163.pdf
16. @NicholaKhan‘s work on Afghans in the UK, including: https://jstor.org/stable/43907700
17. Elaheh Rostami-Povey’s work on Afghan women and invasion (written after 2001)
https://soas.ac.uk/staff/staff57863.php
18. @FranFuoli‘s wonderful historical work https://unibe-ch.academia.edu/FrancescaFuoli
19. @AzizHakimi‘s critical insights on Afghan masculinites, mobility, and war. Start here: https://tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02757206.2020.1865342
20. @KawaKerami‘s https://t.co/8RwVsFJLnq
21. @Wazhmah‘s 2020, Television and the Afghan Culture Wars https://press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/29bgf5br9780252043550.html
22. @Oeppen‘s “‘Leaving Afghanistan! Are You Sure?’ European Efforts to Deter Potential Migrants Through Information Campaigns” https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/42579387.pdf
23. Since the link to Khadija Abbasi’s great work on Hazaras was broken on tweet #1, let me add it here https://graduateinstitute.ch/communications/news/there-death-immobility-identification-process-transnational-young-hazaras
24. Alessandro Monsutti’s seminal 2005 War and Migration, but all of his work really. Here is a good starter: https://researchgate.net/profile/Alessandro-Monsutti/publication/270692368_Anthropologizing_Afghanistan_Colonial_and_Postcolonial_Encounters/links/54d9f62f0cf2970e4e7d3af5/Anthropologizing-Afghanistan-Colonial-and-Postcolonial-Encounters.pdf
25. @zarenaaslami’s body of scholarship on Afghanistan, race, and empire in c.19. Read more here:https://t.co/dwIQvYayCe
26. @QaisMunhazim’s scholarship on IR, gender, and sexuality. See here: https://ahmadqaismunhazim.com
27. @RobertCrews22 & Shazam Bashir’s edited volume Under the Drones has important contributions: https://t.co/xCC61AIKYS
28. Nivi Manchanda’s many works, including: Queering the Pashtun https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.695.2868&rep=rep1&type=pdf
29. (German Resource)
30. Faiz Ahmed’s 2017 Afghanistan Rising, situating Afghanistan conversation with British and Ottoman influence https://t.co/BcGjkZbJqO
31. Benjamin Hopkins historical work is amongst the best and most rigorous. Find out more here: https://t.co/leUtqqRLxk
32. @MaryaHannun‘s work on the Afghan women’s movement during the interwar period: https://t.co/acOrQAz5xc33. Sherine Ebadi, Afghan Feminism and the Politics of Freedom: https://t.co/dwIQvYayCe