Postgraduate Profile: Experiences of loss and hope, and changing traditions of mourning among Hazara refugees from Afghanistan: An oral history analysis

Abstract

Islam and the Muslim diaspora occupy a significant place in current public discourses, making an understanding of the diverse lives of Muslims highly relevant to historical knowledge. My PhD thesis, located in the field of migration studies, explores stories of ethnic, Shiite Hazara refugees from Afghanistan. The Hazaras numbered largely among the asylum seekers arriving by boats on Australian shores over the last decade. As a new community in Australia, and subjects of a recurring nation-wide debate over Muslim refugees and boat arrivals, I first sought an historical perspective of why they had fled. In bringing Afghanistan under a centralised authority in the late 1800s, the Hazaras were brutally subjugated because of ethnic and religious differences. Interviews with Hazara refugees revealed their little-known stories of enduring marginalisation and of renewed persecution under the Taliban. Analysis also highlighted both the impact of trauma and past injustice on the narrators' memories. This early research raised new questions about the central experience of loss among Hazara refugees as they resettle. Within the refugee experience, conflicting emotions of 'hope and grief' are common.