10:00 AM - 11:00 AM (Pacific Time)

ABOUT THE PRESENTATION

Over the past decade the war-torn Pakistan-Afghanistan borderland has seen the emergence of a more vibrant Pashtun ethno-nationalism. The Pashtun ethno-nationalism is a political movement based on an understanding that Pasthuns are a nation who cannot be subsumed in any other nation and the mountainous land along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border is their watan (homeland). The movement laments that the war-adversity that Pasthuns face today is partly because of their failed nationhood. In this article I engage melancholic element expressed in famous nationalistic songs that are often played in political rallies. I engage the psycho-analytic concept of melancholia to understand the workings of melancholic element of the Pashtun ethnonationalism. I argue that the re-emergent Pashtun ethno-nationalism uses melancholia or melancholic attachment to the past (political ideals) to a) keep Pashtun nationalism alive in the long run, and b) to assert it for resilience in the face of the current war adversity in the short run.  

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Syed Sami Raza received his PhD from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, US. He is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Peshawar, Pakistan. For his Post-Doc fellowship he works with Vinay Lal who is Professor of History at UCLA. Raza's research focuses on the intersections of Critical IR and Critical Legal Studies, while the geographic focus is on the Pakistan-Afghanistan region. He is also editor of the journal Review of Human Rights. His latest publications include The Security State in Pakistan: Legal Foundations (Routledge, 2019) (authored) and Geopolitics of Pakistan-Afghanistan Borderland (Routledge 2020) (edited). Email: syedraza@hawaii.edu

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Sponsor(s): Center for India and South Asia