Afghan as (Racialized) “Other”: Politics of Farsi Academic Knowledge Production on Migration in Iran

ABSTRACT

This article critically investigates the politics of academic knowledge production on Afghan migration in Iran, posing the question: how does Iranian academia contribute to bordering strategies that marginalize Afghans? Drawing on a qualitative thematic analysis of 114 Farsi academic articles from the Iranian National Library's database—the point at which thematic saturation was reached within an initial corpus of 210 retrieved by keyword search—this study reveals how scholarly discourses construct Afghans as a racialized and securitized “other.” The analysis identifies five recurring themes: (1) measuring security, (2) measuring difference, (3) the pathology of presence, (4) measuring attitudes, and (5) racism and knowledge production on migration. These thematic findings illustrate how Iranian academic discourse problematizes migration, treating it as a deviation that justifies exclusionary practices. By pathologizing and racializing migration, academic narratives align with state‐driven bordering strategies that dehumanize vulnerable populations and normalize systemic inequalities. The study critiques the ethical failures of such exclusionary knowledge production, emphasizing its role in legitimizing state control and reinforcing public hostility toward marginalized groups. By connecting these findings to global debates on migration and the ethics of knowledge production, this work calls for a reflexive approach to studying migration, one that challenges the systemic injustices perpetuated by exclusionary discourses.