185 © e Author(s) 2020
K. McKowen, J. Borneman (eds.), Digesting Difference, Global Diversities,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49598-5_9
9
Workers for Free: Precarious Inclusion
and Extended Uncertainty Among
Afghan Refugees in Denmark
Mikkel Rytter and Narges Ghandchi
“ey just want workers for free (‘kârgar-e moft’),” Taha claimed during
an interview. Agitated, he continued: “You get three months here, and
then you can add three months there, and then you have to change your
place, then I’m replaced by someone else … it’s never stable and they
never give us a job. ey just want us to work for free.”
Taha is an Afghan refugee in his early 30s, and the “they” refers to his
home municipality and the authorities in charge of his integration pro-
gram. He came to Denmark in 2015 with his daughter in the midst of a
moral panic about refugees when 21,000 asylum seekers entered
Denmark. In the wake of the moral panic, there was a general political
agreement that more refugees needed to start working as soon as they
M. Rytter ()
Department of Anthropology, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
e-mail: mikkel.rytter@cas.au.dk
N. Ghandchi
Department of Educational Anthropology, Aarhus University,
Aarhus, Denmark
e-mail: ng@edu.au.dk