In March 2018, Gazelle Samizay and Helena Zeweri led a workshop at the Afghan American Conference in New York called, “How Culture Matters: Tools for Social Justice through Self-Empowerment.” Participants discussed alternative frameworks within which to (re) activate the notion of ‘culture’ in the struggle for collective care and equality. We began from the premise that there is a shared quality to growing up Afghan in America, shaped by a common set of political, social, and historical conditions. At the same time, how this shared experience manifests in the pasts and presents of different individuals is distinct according to race, class, gender, and other categories of difference. Shared learnings from ancestors past and kin of the present, have made an impact on different individuals in different ways. However, because of the demand (from our communities, our families, and the state) to fit our identities within scripts of Afghanness, we have not been able to properly filter which teachings enable us to participate in struggles for equality and justice, and which need to be discarded because they are antithetical to these struggles.
While avoiding the pitfalls of community insularity, cultural essentialism, and identity politics, we discussed how different cultural norms and forms have both enabled and hindered our participation in broader political and social movements.
