Violence, Terrorism, and Identity Politics in Afghanistan: The Securitisation of Higher Education

Christian Kaunert and Arif Sahar
Additional contact information
Christian Kaunert: International Centre for Policing and Security, University of South Wales, Pontypridd CF37 4BD, UK
Arif Sahar: Centre of Excellence in Terrorism, Resilience, Intelligence and Organised Crime Research [CENTRIC], Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield S1 1WB, UK

Social Sciences, 2021, vol. 10, issue 5, 1-20

Abstract: This article investigates the securitisation of the higher education sector in Afghanistan by examining ‘hidden’ non-discursive practices as opposed to overt discursive threat construction. Non-discursive practices are framed by the habitus inherited from different social fields, whereas in Afghanistan, securitising actors converge from different habitus (e.g., institutions, professions, backgrounds) to bar the ‘other’ ethnic or social groups from resources and spaces which could empower these groups to become a pertinent threat, a fear, and a danger to the monopoly of the state elites over the state power and resources. The most prominent securitisation practices emerging from the data include mainly (1) the obstruction of the formation of critical ideas and politics; (2) the obstruction of economic opportunities; and (3) the obstruction of social justice. This article deploys a case study methodology and uses the Kabul University as its subject of investigation.

Keywords: Afghanistan; securitisation; violence; higher education; identity politics; statebuilding (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/10/5/150/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/10/5/150/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:10:y:2021:i:5:p:150-:d:543268

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

More articles in Social Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().