
Refugees as Storytellers: Shifting Perspectives in War Journalism
Weizenbaum Fellow Ayesha Jehangir's research explores how journalists convey human suffering in war zones. Her current project focuses on Afghan journalists who fled to Germany, examining their reporting practices and use of digital technologies.
What inspired you to start this project?
The project emerged from the ongoing debate about “diversity vs. objectivity” in Australian media, which gained momentum in late 2023. This debate was sparked by how the media covered two major events: the Australian Indigenous Voice referendum and Israel’s war on Gaza after the October 7 attack. During this time, I often found myself in discussions with media professionals and academics who questioned whether a journalist’s ethnic background might affect their ability to report objectively. Some senior journalists even argued that reporters from diverse backgrounds should not cover stories tied to their own ethnic communities. For example, they suggested that Indigenous Australian journalists should not report on the Voice referendum (which ended up being rejected nationally and in every state), and Australian journalists of Middle Eastern heritage should be excluded from reporting on the war in Gaza.
These discussions and debates left me thinking about how conveniently the work of non-western journalists can be delegitimised and labelled as advocacy, activism, radical, and thus not accepted as ‘real journalism’. These debates also left me wondering about agency and self-determination in journalistic storytelling, and the accuracy that lived experience can bring to reporting human suffering caused by war and conflict, but also structural violence that persists within systems still rooted in their colonial past. The idea of “Borderless voices” was born then, which probes these power dynamics of who is/ isn’t allowed to tell stories and what stories are left to be told.
What distinguishes the work of refugee journalists?
I think the refugee voice – experiences, cultural knowledge and narratives of individuals who have been forced to flee their homeland – can bring unique perspectives to enrich impactful journalistic storytelling as well as how human suffering is mediated to the broader society, particularly the distant other.
What distinguishes the work of refugee journalists, I argue, is the shift in gaze – from refugee as the object of media and public discourse to refugee as the subject, where instead of being predominately framed through the Western journalist’s lens, the refugee tells the story in their own words. This way, a new form of sociological journalism emerges, where displacement is a common factor between the storyteller and whose story is being told. In this form of journalism, journalistic duty merges with authenticity, acknowledgement, respect, and purpose.
What are the challenges for Afghan journalists living and working in exile in Germany?
My preliminary findings suggest that exiled Afghan journalists grapple with defining their role – whether to advocate for regime change, act as opposition, or remain dedicated solely to journalism. Yet, moral responsibility remains a cornerstone of their journalism that focuses on human rights, peace and social justice.
Journalists’ networks both among the diaspora and in the homeland play a crucial role in facilitating journalists operating from exile. However, I found that Afghan journalists in exile in Germany are struggling to create and maintain a network of journalists in exile.
Those who managed to get work in mainstream media such as Deutsche Welle, which is very rare, are, however, thriving both professionally and as members of German society.
The fall of Kabul and the ongoing Taliban atrocities have impacted the mental health of many Afghan journalists living in exile in Germany and across Europe, most of whom still have family members in Afghanistan. This is a major concern, however, that is outside the remit of my current research.
Could you provide insights into this community in Germany and beyond?
In 2023, Berlin-based JX Fund identified 47 fully operating Afghan media in exile. Of these, 17 are based in or at least partially based in Germany. This is a huge number. After Germany, Canada became a hub for hundreds of Afghan exiled journalists and media professionals due to the Canadian government evacuation and resettlement programs. To date, 11 out of the 47 Afghan media in exile are based in Canada, followed by the U.S (9). These exclude independent social media journalists, citizen journalists, and ethnic/community/diaspora media.
Using the concept of symbolic bordering in your research, could you please describe the idea of this concept?
Professor Lilie Chouliaraki from LSE discusses how non-Western perspectives are often deliberately excluded from mainstream media, reinforcing what she calls “symbolic borders.” These borders create divisions between “insiders” and “outsiders,” leading to harmful biases in how knowledge is produced. She argues that this not only dismisses non-Western approaches to journalism but also undermines the credibility and value of listening to journalists from diverse backgrounds.
Chouliaraki's concept of the symbolic border emerges within her critical examination of global media, particularly in how it constructs narratives of suffering, morality, and responsibility. I take one step back (or up if you’d like) and apply her concept to the symbolic bordering as a manifestation of colonial attitudes towards journalistic agency and authority in who can but also who can tell the story of suffering from the Majority World. In that essence, my project probes how refugee journalists reconfigure these symbolic borders way before they are created in the public perception, ultimately creating contact zones between western and non-western audiences for, what Australian media sociologist Tanja Dreher refers to as, ‘listening across difference’.
How do digitalization and diverse media, including social media, influence their reporting?
I find that the use of and access to digital platforms and technology is political. Digital platforms, we know, allow exiled journalists to connect with global audiences and engage directly with their home-country communities, often bypassing traditional gatekeepers like mainstream media. However, many report incidents of shadow banning, which significantly limits the visibility of their reports, undermining their ability to inform and engage.
Moreover, the digital trail left by exiled journalists can expose them and leave their sources inside Afghanistan vulnerable to surveillance, and online and offline harassment by the hostile Taliban regime. Most of the exiled media and journalists are trying to address this by keeping their journalists on the ground and using pseudonyms for bylines. There is a need for specialised training on digital security, as most of them are relying on self-help.
Thank you for the interview!
The interview was conducted by Katharina Stefes