Stopping it at source: Migration decision- and policy-making in Afghanistan This project examines the impact of EU strategies to discourage migration and return rejected asylum seekers back to Afghanistan. It asks how information from different sources about migration is gathered, sorted and evaluated by potential migrants and by their government. The study focuses on a country with a history and culture of migration during a period of increasing insecurity, severe and growing unemployment, and rapidly changing circumstances and policies, where migration is seen as both a solution and a problem.  Afghanistan has been a source country for the largest number of forced migrants globally for the past four decades. The large scale returns from neighboring countries that followed the fall of the Taliban government have slowed significantly and outflows have continued. Over the past two years, migration has sharply increased in response to the resurgence of the Taliban and other insurgents following the withdrawal of international forces, a sharp contraction in the economy due to political uncertainty and growing insecurity, the acknowledgement by the President that the security forces could not protect individuals and the perception in summer 2015 that Europe had opened its borders to refugees.  By the end of 2015, the governments of destination (and donor) countries responded with information campaigns seeking to reduce and or deflect the number of migrants heading in their direction, and warned the Afghan government that further aid would be contingent on cooperation in reducing out-migration and accepting forced returns (the EU's new 'more for more, and less for less' strategy). This is a challenge given a culture in which migration has traditionally been a survival strategy, a 'normal' response to crises, and given the flow of information from family members abroad largely encouraging departure.  This study explores the pressures on both the Afghan policymakers and Afghan citizens. Both groups seek to make decisions in severely constrained circumstances, on the basis of competing, conflicting and imperfect information. The project has 3 work streams, developed in consultation with Afghan stakeholders:  We seek to understand how and why different information sources (families, friends, agents, the media, governments) are validated while others are discounted by potential migrants;  We will study Afghan migration policy-making with a focus on responses to pressures by destination/donor states to stop large scale emigration;  We will explore representations of forced migration in Afghan popular culture (survival strategy, adventure, investment), which forms the backdrop to the above processes. As a country with a long history of forced migration in particular, we will consider whether popular culture 'normalises' migration and the opportunities and risks associated with it. We will gather popular poetry and songs in the two national languages that refer to migration, migrants and those left behind. The study is particularly important because it explores the response in Afghanistan to established (information campaigns) and new (more for more, less for less) strategies adopted by EU policy-makers in their drive to reduce migration from developing countries. Together with a team of Afghan researchers from the Social Sciences and the Arts, we will employ a range of methods (repeat interviews with potential migrants and with Afghan policy-makers over a period of 12 months, a textual analysis of popular culture [songs and poetry] leading to a filmed theatrical performance by Theatre students. This will be the first time that Afghan scholars have produced internationally excellent academic research on migration in Afghanistan in the national languages. The Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) supports cutting-edge research to address challenges faced by developing countries. The fund addresses the UN sustainable development goals. It aims to maximise the impact of research and innovation to improve lives and opportunity in the developing world.