ABSTRACT
In the course of my field research and my work on this text, I tried to avoid the pitfall of looking at migration with an essentially external focus on the reasons for departure and the problems for the host society. I therefore took an interest in the strategies of individuals and households, without becoming involved in the debatable theory of rational choice. I did not set any a priori limits to a community but concentrated on what a small group of persons did and said, as the basis for a gradual reconstitution of the actual social relations. The results point beyond the few cases that were examined. War and exile have profoundly shaken Afghan society, but the people themselves have maintained, while also adjusting, most of their cultural references. Because of the research conditions and the cultural context, it was not possible for me to go more deeply into role and viewpoint of Afghan women. But, despite this serious lacuna, the study of Hazara social networks and economic strategies proved fruitful. Thanks to their dynamism, the Hazaras have been able to find answers to a dramatic situation by drawing upon social structures that already existed before. They have thus established large commercial and migratory networks on the basis of diverse social ties, the most prominent of which are kinship and neighborly proximity.
