The UNHCR and the Afghan crisis : the making of the international refugee regime / Giulia Scalettaris

Translation of: Le HCR et la crise afghane : une bureaucratie internationale à l'épreuve

Includes bibliographical references and index

An embedded bureaugraphy -- The 'refugee problem' and the reality of Afghan Mobility -- Cartography of a diffused presence -- The institutional career of the ACSU Project -- The insular cosmopolitanism of expatriate staff -- Afghan staff, the brokers of the intervention -- Selecting between non-nationals : negotiating the status of Afghans in Iran -- Confronting state sovereignty : camp closure in Pakistan -- Emplacing returnees in Afghanistan -- The authority of expertise -- Surveillance as protection -- or protection as surveillance?

"Today the UNHCR is present in more than 130 countries and takes care of some 90 million people. This book looks at how it is deployed and who its agents are. By taking the reader through the offices in charge of the Afghan refugee crisis during the 2000s, in Geneva and in Kabul, the book shows the internal functioning of this international organization. It provides analysis of Afghan refugee policies from an original position, with the author being both agency official and anthropologist, and articulates multiple levels of analysis: the micropolitics of practices as much as the institution and the multi-scalar power relations that shape its environment"-- Provided by publisher