Cooperation, remittances, and kinship among the Hazaras

During the last 20 years, Afghanistan has been torn apart by war and civil strife, which have generated the most important refugee population in the world. The Hazaras constitute the third largest ethnic group of the country, after the Pashtuns and the Tajiks. They originally dwelled in central Afghanistan, a high and infertile area called Hazarajat. Unlike the majority of the Afghan population, most of them are Shiite Muslims, a fact which has deepened their political and socio-economic marginalization. Many Hazaras fled from their region of origin at the end of the nineteenth century when the emir Abd al-Rahman subjugated it; they settled in Quetta (then in British India, today in Pakistan) and around Mashad (Iran). Driven by poverty, the Hazaras have migrated throughout the twentieth century. Many went to the cities, especially to Kabul but also to Mazar-e Sharif and Herat, while others traveled to Pakistan or to Iran in