The UNHCR and the Afghan Crisis

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.

Giulia Scalettaris is Assistant Professor in Political Science at the University of Lille, where she directs the Master in Humanitarian Affairs. She has worked with several international and non-governmental organizations in Kenya, France, Switzerland and Afghanistan.