The programme is unique in terms of both content and structure. For one, all the scholars studying the topic have a connection to Afghanistan. Structurally, the programme places all responsibility in the hands of people who were born in Afghanistan. This ensures that the generated insights will enrich the current discourse in ways that have been lacking. We thank our founder VW-Stiftung, without whose support this would not have been possible.
The programme is based on the following principles:
participative
All the designated research projects are about exploring, understanding and changing social realities in partnership. It is important that those whose living situations, structures and ways of working we want to learn about are directly involved in the research. Incorporating these perspectives will help us better understand the social environment in Afghanistan and contribute to change. Towards this aim, the programme will allow participating academics, journalists, politicians and activists from Afghanistan to have their say. We expect that important topics, perspectives and arguments will come to light that have thus far been unnoticed or underrepresented in research.
transformative
One of the main objectives of this programme is to disseminate knowledge and build two-way relationships between intellectuals, political activists and journalists so that they can use scientific-social insights as soon as they become aware of the situation in Afghanistan. The programme, therefore, follows a transdisciplinary understanding of knowledge: it not only creates “system knowledge” (e.g. in the context of technical or resource-oriented media system analyses) but also, together with actors from the field, “target knowledge” (i.e. visions and guiding principles) and concrete “transformation knowledge” for sustainable change (e.g. media on the global Afghan diaspora). In this way, in addition to providing analysis, the programme creates tools to actively stimulate and influence processes of social change that may be transferable to other fragile states.
communicative
The programme does not exhaust itself in the scientific work of the participants but also positions itself as a contact point at the interface between the communication spaces of the German public, the Afghan exile community and the public in Afghanistan. We therefore want to use different communication formats to reach a broader public, which is not possible with conventional forms of academic publication. By combining research results with personal experiences and impressions, it should be possible to communicate the topic from the ivory tower of science to society. We want to reach not only academia but other target groups interested in this topic, such as media development cooperation actors, politicians, journalists in general, journalists who have worked in Afghanistan, the Afghan community in Germany and students of communication studies.
decolonial research
Decolonization of Afghanistan research is urgently needed. Eurocentric perspectives on Afghanistan must be broken in favour of an “ecology of knowledge” that takes the internal perspectives of endogenous researchers equally seriously. The decolonisation of knowledge about Afghanistan consists of breaking the monopoly of Western thinking through open access to forms of knowledge from Afghanistan. Our programme was conceived as a participatory dialogue of all stakeholders to ensure that “knowledge” on the topic will be brought together from different sources and perspectives. A prerequisite for a deeper understanding and the scope of what has been achieved, especially in the everyday media-political life of Afghanistan, is the inclusion of those directly affected (i.e. the local and situated knowledge of endogenous actors often invisible in classical research). Such knowledge can open new perspectives and enrich existing knowledge aggregates on the one hand and the public on the other. In this respect, the project is not only an extension of previous research but also an important try to expand the “established bodies of knowledge”.