Orientalist Constructions of the Frontier Pashtuns: On the Postcolonial History and Repercusions - Zahid Ali Shah (Quaid i Azam University) and Ruling the Borderlands: Pakistan's State and its Ruling Practices - Usman Khan (Quaid i Azam University)

Orientalist Constructions of the Frontier Pashtuns

This article seeks to explore the colonial encounters with Pashtuns of the erstwhile North West Frontier Province (now renamed as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Pakistan and their mythical Orientalist constructions in the colonial historical and ethnographic accounts of the late 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. The recurring colonial images and the transformation of colonial discourses and post-colonial effects on Pashtun identity and society are analyzed in this research article. Noticeably, it looks into the paradigm shift from the anthropocentric views of Pashtuns to Orientalized and Europocentric ideas by applying Edward Said’s (1978) influential thesis of "Orientalism" and integrating the work of other post-colonial thinkers. This research article draws upon archival, anthropological, ethnographic field data to supplement the textual analysis and challenge the Orientalist and colonial representation of Pashtuns. The ethnographic field data were gathered through in-depth interviews with various Pashtun intellectuals, poets, writers, and authors from various institutions in Peshawar and Charsadda. However, this research article demonstrates that there are colonial biases and Eurocentric constructions of Pashtuns in the colonial accounts and texts. The colonial biassed representations of Pashtuns are transformed into postcolonial discourses. Pashtuns and Pashtun society are still uncritically analyzed through colonial lenses and spectacles.

Zahid Ali Shah is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Anthropology, Quaid-i-Azam University Islamabad

Ruling the Borderlands

In this article, I build on and extend existing academic literature that posits the general conception of the state as a unified, monolithic, and homogenized entity as flawed, by detailing what the state means to the people living in the periphery and borderland regions of Pakistan, popularly known as the Frontier. I argue that, despite the borderland region becoming formally absorbed into mainstream Pakistan at the time of formal independence in 1947, that the state ruling practices are still colonial in essence. Through a ‘thick’ ethnography of Lower Dir, I document militarized, and fragmented state practices that Anna Tsing refers as the “sticky materiality of practical encounters” of the local people with the state apparatuses such as army, police and bureaucracy. I argue that, the borderland region that is still strategically and geopolitically equally important for Pakistan and global powers can be decolonized. The state must treat the borderland inhabitants as fully citizens and must integrate them inclusively. It’s a high time to bring an end to the still existed colonial ways of ruling the region based on inclusion and exclusion policy.

Dr. Usman Khan is a Lecturer at the Department of Anthropology, Quaid-i-Azam University Islamabad

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