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Paper short abstract

This study investigates how Afghan young men negotiate their economic self-reliance, and how the bordering-practices of Pakistan shape their (im)mobility within and beyond Pakistan. It highlights borders-governance narratives in the global South, via exploring Afghan youth's mobility experiences.

Paper long abstract

This study investigates how Afghan young men—who are born in Pakistan—negotiate their economic self-reliance, and how the bordering-practices of Pakistan shape their (im)mobility within and beyond Pakistan. Via focusing on the daily experiences of Afghan youth in Pakistan, this research aims to highlight the intersection of borders-governance, (im)mobility, and economic-exclusion/inclusion of refugees from a global South perspective. The study focuses on young Afghan men living in Peshawar—the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province—as this region hosts the largest number of Afghan refugees in Pakistan, and their younger generations are born here. Moreover, besides hosting millions of Afghans since the early 1980s, Pakistan is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, nor has it enacted any refugee-specific national legislation. The absence of a legal framework creates uncertainties for Afghans and enforces their (im)mobility within and beyond Pakistan. Moreover, the recent initiatives of their repatriation/deportation to Afghanistan deepens legal crisis surrounding Afghans, their livelihoods and businesses, complicating their (im)mobility within and across borders. Therefore, by engaging Khosravi’s (2026) “weight of the border” concept and Agamben’s notion of “state of exception” (1998), this study explores how the legal exception of Afghan youth in Pakistan intersects with border-governance/weight-of-the-borders and affects their economic opportunities and mobilities. Qualitative methods were used to conduct interviews—both in-person and online—which explore how the narratives of border-governance/security, via repatriation of Afghans, resulted in the forced (im)mobility and de-skilling of Afghan youth, and in the deterioration of their generation-old businesses in Pakistan.