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Mehran_2026_SAGE_20563051261434800.pdf
Journal article

Afghanistan’s digital diaspora : conflicted constructions of nation and identity

  • Mehran, Abdul Wahid ORCID Istituto di comunicazione e politiche pubbliche (ICPP), Facoltà di comunicazione, cultura e società, Università della Svizzera italiana, Svizzera
  • Drzewiecka, Jolanta A. ORCID Istituto di comunicazione e politiche pubbliche (ICPP), Facoltà di comunicazione, cultura e società, Università della Svizzera italiana, Svizzera
  • 2026
Published in:
  • Social Media + Society. - 2026, vol. 12, no. 2, p. 1-11
Afghanistan's diaspora
Digital diaspora
Identity
Nation
Online firestorms
English Afghanistan’s diaspora swelled after the Taliban took over the government in 2021 and initiated a nation-building project that marginalized some ethnic groups. Acts of discrimination were exposed online and discussed by users in the diaspora and in Afghanistan. Studies of non-mediated practices of Afghanistan’s diaspora show separation along ethnic lines. How the ethnic divisions play out in the digital space where users from the diaspora and Afghanistan debate the future of the nation and whether digital affordances facilitate interactions across divisions, and how, have not been addressed. We connect the literature on digital diaspora and firestorms to elucidate the role of affect in interactions between “here and there.” We conducted a netnography of X (Twitter) posts about events in Afghanistan between August 15, 2021, when the Taliban seized Kabul, and August 15, 2024. A thematic analysis of threads revealed three themes: essentialist displacement, the politics of labels, and language advocacy. The themes wove reciprocal defensive exclusionary discourses of place, group labels, and language erupting in affective surges animated by historical grievances and perceptions of marginalization evolved over centuries-long cohabitation in spaces that now constitute the state of Afghanistan. While heterogeneous and interacting across ethnic lines, the contributors spun essentialist discourses reflecting struggles over recognition, legitimacy, and ownership of the national narrative. The ethnic divisions were actively reshaped and expressed in digital spaces, producing fragmented encapsulation.
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Language
  • English
Classification
Information, communication and media sciences
License
CC BY-NC
Open access status
gold
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://n2t.net/ark:/12658/srd1335630
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