Drawing on the frameworks of peace journalism, this book offers new insights into the Pakistani media coverage of Afghan refugees and their forced repatriation from Pakistan. I examine the political, social and economic forces that influence and govern the reporting practices of journalists covering the protracted refugee conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
I find routinely accommodated media narratives of securitisation that represent Afghan refugees as a ‘threat’, a ‘burden’, and the ‘other’ that, through reinforcement, have become an incontestable reality for the public in Pakistan. Through a critical discourse analysis of the structures of journalistic iterability of Afghan refugees in Pakistan, I distill four dominant and three emerging peace frames and propose a new teleological turn for peace journalism as a deliberative practice, that is to say practice that by promoting transparency and accountability (recognition) and challenging dominant power-proposed narratives and perspectives (resistance) encourages public engagement and participation (cosmopolitan solidarity). I also privilege an analytical approach that conceptualises the nexus between digital witnessing and peace journalism through the paradigm of cosmopolitan ethics, whilst also focusing on blind spots of peace journalism.
This book will appeal to those interested in studying and practicing journalism as a conscientious communicative practice that holds power accountable and elicits the very public it seeks to inform.
Jehangir, A. (2024). Afghan Refugees, Pakistani Media and the State: The Missing Peace. Routldge.
