The Imperiled Connective Presence of Afghans in Pakistan

The mass deportation of Afghan refugees and mobile people from Pakistan to Afghanistan is reshaping trade networks and routes, dividing families, and disrupting local economies and identities. For centuries, traders and others in the Afghan diaspora were crucial to economic and cultural interconnection between Central and South Asia. This role continued through twentieth-century upheavals including the 1947 partition of the subcontinent and the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. But Taliban’s return to power has raised tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan, hardening the formerly permeable border.